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BEDTIME 


STORIES 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


BY 

HOWARD R. GARIS 

Author of “Sammie and Susie Littletail,” “Uncle Wiggily 
and Mother Goose.” “The Bedtime Series 
of Animal Stories,” “The Daddy Series,” etc. 


ILLUSTRATED BY LOUIS WISA 




A. L. BURT COMPANY 


PUBLISHERS 


• • 


• • 


NEW YORK 





CHILDREN’S BOOKS 

By HOWARD R. GARIS 

BEDTIME ANIMAL STORIES 


CLOTH, FINELY DECORATED COVER, EIGHT COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS 

Price per volume. 75 cents, postpaid 


Each book contains a story for every night in the 

month 


SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL 

JOHNNIE AND BILLIE BUSHYTAIL 

LULU, ALICE AND JIMMIE WIBBLEWOBBLE 

JACKIE AND PEETIE BOW WOW 

BUDDY AND BRIGHTEYES PIGG 

JOIE, TOMMIE AND KITTIE KAT 

CHARLIE AND ARABELLA CHICK 

NEDDIE AND BECKIE STUBTAIL 

BULLY AND BAWLY NO-TAIL 

NANNIE AND BILLIE WAGTAIL 

JOLLIE AND JILLIE LONGTAIL 

JACKO AND JUMPO KINKYTAIL 

CURLEY AND FLOPPY TWISTYTAIL 


THE UNCLE WIGGILY SERIES 

Each book contains 31 stories about a nice old gentle' 

man Rabbit 

UNCLE WIGGILY’S ADVENTURES 

UNCLE WIGGILY’S TRAVELS 

UNCLE WIGGILY’S FORTUNE 

UNCLE WIGGILY’S AUTOMOBILE 

UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE SEASHORE . .. 

UNCLE WIGGILY’S AIRSHIP 

UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE COUNTRY 

UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE WOODS 

UNCLE WIGGILY ON THE FARM 


SOMETHING NEW 
THE DADDY SERIES 
COLORED COYER AND FRONTISPIECE 
BLACK AMD WHITE DRAWINGS 

A little boy, a little girl—and Daddy have fun, adven¬ 
ture and amusement, out o> doors and 
learn many of nature’s* secrets 
Price 40 cents each, postpaid 
DADDY TAKES US CAMPING 
DADDY TAKES US FISHING 
DADDY TAKES US TO THE CIRCUS 
DADDY TAKES US SKATING 
DADDY TAKES US COASTING 
DADDY TAKES US HUNTING FLOWERS 
DADDY TAKES US HUNTING BIRDS 
DADDY TAKES US TO THE WOODS 


SOMETHING* ELSE NEW 

Circus Animal Stories 

The animals in the big tent tell one another how they 
were caught in the jungle and taught to do tricks. 
Price $ 1.00 each, postpaid 

Snarlie, the Tiger; Woo-Uff, the Lion; Humpo, the 

Camel, etc. 


Copyright 1917, by 
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 
UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE WOODS 

© Cl. A 4 (> 7 9 9 7 L f_■ 









CONTENTS 


Story Page 

I Uncle Wiggily and the Willow Tree .... 9 

II Uncle Wiggily and the Wintergreen .... 18 

III Uncle Wiggily and the Slippery Elm.... 24 ' 

IV Uncle Wiggily and the Sassafras . 30 

V Uncle Wiggily and the Pulpit-Jack. 36 

VI Uncle Wiggily and the Violets . 42 

VII Uncle Wiggily and the High Tree. 48 

VIII Uncle Wiggily and the Peppermint . 54 

IX Uncle Wiggily and the Birch Tree. 60 

X Uncle Wiggily and the Butternut Tree.. . 67 

XI Uncle Wiggily and Lulu’s Hat. 73 

XII Unole Wiggily and the Snow Drops. 79 

XIII Uncle Wiggily and the Horse Chestnut. . 86 

XIV Uncle Wiggily and the Pine Tree. 98 

XV Uncle Wiggily and the Green Rushes. ... 100 

XVI Uncle Wiggily and the Bee Tree. 105 

XVII Uncle Wiggily and the Dogwood . 110 

XVIII Uncle Wiggily and the Hazel Nuts. 116 

XIX Uncle Wiggily and Susie’s Dress. 122 

XX Uncle Wiggily and Tommie’s Kite. 128 

XXI Uncle Wiggily and Johnnie’s Marbles. .. . 135 

XXII Uncle Wiggily and Billie’s Top. 142 

XXIII Uncle Wiggily and the Sunbeam . 149 

XXIV Uncle Wiggily and the Puff Ball. 155 

XXV Uncle Wiggily and the May Flowers.... 160 

XXVI Uncle Wiggily and the Beech Tree. 165 

XXVII Uncle Wiggily and the Bitter Medicine . . 170 

XXVIII Uncle Wiggily and the Pine Cones. 175 

XXIX Uncle Wiggily and His Torn Coat. 180 

XXX Uncle Wiggily and the Sycamore Tree.. . 185 

XXXI Uncle Wiggily and the Red Spots. 191 






















/ 


STORY I 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE WILLOW TREE 

“Well, it’s all settled!” exclaimed Uncle 
Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, one 
day, as he hopped up the steps of his hollow 
stump bungalow where Nurse Jane Fuzzy 
Wuzzy, his muskrat lady housekeeper, was fan¬ 
ning herself with a cabbage leaf tied to her tail. 
“It’s all settled.” 

“What is?” asked Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. “You 
don’t mean to tell me anything has happened to 
you?” and she looked quite anxious. 

“No, I’m all right,” laughed Uncle Wiggily, 
“and I hope you are the same. What I meant 
was that it’s all settled where we are going to 
spend our vacation this Summer.” 

“Oh, tell me where!” exclaimed the muskrat 
lady clapping her paws, anxious like. 

“In a hollow stump bungalow, just like this, 
but in the woods instead of in the country,” 
answered Uncle Wiggily. 

9 


10 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“Oh, that will be fine!” cried Miss Fuzzy 
Wuzzv. “I love the woods. When are we to 
go?” 

“Very soon now,” answered the bunny gen¬ 
tleman uncle. “You may begin to pack up as 
quickly as you please.” 

And Nurse Jane and Uncle Wiggily moved 
to the woods very next day and his adventures 
began. 

I guess most of you know about the rabbit 
gentleman and his muskrat lady housekeeper 
who nursed him when he was ill w T ith the rheu¬ 
matism. Uncle Wiggily had lots and lots of 
adventures, about which I have told you in the 
books before this one. 

He had traveled about seeking his fortune, 
he had even gone sailing in his airship, and once 
he met Mother Goose and all her friends from 
Old King Cole down to Little Jack Horner. 

Uncle Wiggily had many friends among the 
animal boys and girls. There was Sammie and 
Susie Littletail, the rabbits, who have a book all 
to themselves; just as have Jackie and Peetie 
Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys, and Jollie and 
Jillie Longtail, the mice children. 

“And I s’pose we’ll meet all your friends in 
the woods, won’t we, Uncle Wiggily?” asked 



Uncle Wiggily and the Willow Tree 11 


Nurse Jane, as they moved from the old hollow 
stump bungalow to the new one. 

“Oh, yes, I s’pose so, of course,” he laughed 
in answer, as he pulled his tall silk hat more 
tightly down on his head, fastened on his glasses 
and took his red, white and blue striped barber 
pole rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane had 
gnawed for him out of a cornstalk. 

So, once upon a time, not very many years 
ago, as all good stories should begin, Uncle 
Wiggily and Nurse Jane found themselves in 
the woods. It was lovely among the trees, and 
as soon as the rabbit gentleman had helped Miss 
Fuzzy Wuzzy put the hollow stump bungalow 
to rights he started out for a walk. 

“I want to see what sort of adventures I shall 
have in the woods,” said Mr. Longears as he 
hopped along. 

Now in these woods lived, among many other 
creatures good and bad, two skillery-scalery alli¬ 
gators who were not exactly friends of the 
bunny uncle. But don’t let that worry you, for 
though the alligators, and other unpleasant ani¬ 
mals, may, once in a while, make trouble for 
Uncle Wiggily, I’ll never really let them hurt 
him. I’ll fix that part all right! 

So, one day, the skillery-scalery alligator with 
the humps on his tail, and his brother, another 



12 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


skillery-scalery chap, whose tail was double 
jointed, were taking a walk through the woods 
together just as Uncle Wiggily was doing. 

“Brother,” began the hump-tailed ’gator 
(which I call him for short), “brother, wouldn’t 
you like a nice rabbit?” 

“Indeed I would,” answered the double- 
jointed tail ’gator, who could wobble his flippers 
both ways. “And I know of no nicer rabbit 
than Uncle Wiggily Longears.” 

“The very same one about whom I was think¬ 
ing!” exclaimed the other alligator. “Let’s 
catch him!” 

“That’s what we’ll do!” said the double- 
jointed chap. “We’ll hide in the woods until 
he comes along, as he does every day, and then 
we’ll jump out and grab him. Oh, you yum- 
yum!” 

“Fine!” grunted his brother. “Come on!” 

Off they crawled through the woods, and 
pretty soon they came to a willow tree, where 
the branches grew so low down that they looked 
like a curtain that had unwound itself off the 
roller, when the cat hangs on it. 

“This is the place for us to hide—by the weep¬ 
ing willow tree,” said the skillery-scalery alli¬ 
gator with bumps on his tail. 

“The very place,” agreed his brother. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Willow Tree 13 


So they hid behind the thick branches of the 
tree, which had leafed put for early spring, and 
there the two bad creatures waited. 

Just before this Uncle Wiggily himself had 
started out from his hollow stump bungalow to 
walk in the woods and across the fields, as he 
did every day. 

“I wonder what sort of an adventure I shall 
have this time?” he said to himself. “I hope it 
will be a real nice one.” 

Oh! If Uncle Wiggily had known what was 
in store for him, I think he would have stayed 
in his hollow stump bungalow. But never mind, 
I’ll make it all come out right in the end, you 
see if I don’t. I don’t know just how I’m 
going to do it, yet, but I’ll find a way, never 
fear. 

Uncle Wiggily hopped on and on, now and 
then swinging his red-white-and-blue-striped 
rheumatism crutch like a cane, because he felt 
so young and spry and spring-like. Pretty 
soon he came to the willow tree. He was sort of 
looking up at it, wondering if a nibble of some 
of the green leaves would not do him good, 
when, all of a sudden, out jumped the two bad 
alligators and grabbed the bunny gentleman. 

“Now we have you!” cried the humped-tail 
’gator. 



14 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“And you can’t get away from us,” said the 
other chap—the double-jointed tail one. 

“Oh, please let me go!” begged Uncle Wig¬ 
gily, but they hooked their claws in his fur, and 
pulled him back under the tree, which held its 
branches so low. I told you it was a weeping 
willow tree, and just now it was weeping, I 
think, because Uncle Wiggily was in such 
trouble. 

“Let’s see now,” said the double-jointed tail 
alligator. “I’ll carry this rabbit home, and 
then—” 

“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” interrupted 
the other, and not very politely, either. “I’ll 
carry him myself. Why, I caught him as much 
as you did!” 

“Well, maybe you did, but I saw him first.” 

“I don’t care! It was my idea. I first thought 
of this way of catching him!” 

And then those two alligators disputed, and 
talked very unpleasantly, indeed, to one an¬ 
other. 

But, all the while, they kept tight hold of the 
bunny uncle, so he could not get away. 

“Well,” said the double-jointed tail alligator 
after a while, “we must settle this one way or the 
other. Aun I to carry him to our den, or you?” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Willow Tree 15 


“Me! I’ll do it. If you took him you’d keep 
him all for yourself. I know you!” 

“No, I wouldn’t! But that’s just what you’d 
do. I know you only too well. No, if I can’t 
carry this rabbit home myself, you shan’t!” 

“I say the same thing. I’m going to have my 
rights.” 

Now, while the two bad alligators were talk¬ 
ing this way they did not pay much attention to 
Uncle Wiggily. They held him so tightly in 
their claws that he could not get away, but he 
could use his own paws, and, when the two bad 
creatures were talking right in each other’s face, 
and using big words, Uncle Wiggily reached up 
and cut off a piece of willow wood with the bark 
on. 

And then, still when the ’gators were disput¬ 
ing, and not looking, the bunny uncle made 
himself a whistle out of the willow tree stick. 
He loosened the bark, which came off like a 
kid glove, and then he cut a place to blow his 
breath in, and another place to let the air out 
and so on, until he had a very fine whistle in¬ 
deed, almost as loud-blowing as those the police¬ 
men have to stop the automobiles from splashing 
mud on you so a trolley car can bump into you. 

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said the hump- 
tail alligator at last. “Since you won’t let me 



16 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


carry him home, and I won’t let you, let’s both 
carry him together. You take hold of him on 
one side, and I’ll take the other.” 

“Good!” cried the second alligator. 

“Oh, ho! I guess not!” cried the bunny uncle 
suddenly. “I guess you won’t either, or both of 
you take me off to your den. No, indeed!” 

“Why not?” asked the hump-tailed ’gator, 
sort of impolite like and sarcastic. 

“Because I’m going to blow my whistle and 
call the police!” went on the bunny uncle. “Toot! 
Toot! Tootity-ti-toot-toot!” 

And then and there he blew such a loud, shrill 
blast on his willow tree whistle that the alli¬ 
gators had to put their paws over their ears. 
And wdien they did that they had to let go of 
bunny uncle. He had his tall silk hat down over 
his ears, so it didn’t matter how loudly he blew 
the whistle. He couldn’t hear it. 

“Toot! Toot! Tootity-toot-toot!” he blew on 
the willow whistle. 

“Oh, stop! Stop!” cried the hump-tailed 
’gator. 

“Come on, run away before the police come!” 
said his brother. And out from under the wil¬ 
low tree they both ran, leaving Uncle Wiggily 
safely behind. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Willow Tree 17 


“Well,” said the bunny gentleman as he 
hopped along home to his bungalow, “it is a 
good thing I learned, when a boy rabbit, how to 
make whistles.” And I think so myself. 

So if the vinegar jug doesn’t jump into the 
molasses barrel and turn its face sour like a 
lemon pudding, I’ll tell you next about Uncle 
Wiggily and the winter green. 



STORY II 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE WINTERGREEN 

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gen¬ 
tleman rabbit, knocked on the door of the hollow 
tree in the woods where Johnnie and Billie 
Bushytail, the two little squirrel boys, lived. 

“Come in!” invited Mrs. Bushytail. So Uncle 
Wiggily went in. 

“I thought I’d come around and see you,” he 
said to the squirrel lady. “I’m living in the 
woods this Summer and just now I am out tak¬ 
ing a walk, as I do every day, and I hoped I 
might meet with an adventure. But, so far, I 
haven’t. Do you know where I could find an 
adventure, Mrs. Bushytail?” 

“No, I’m sorry to say I don’t, Uncle Wig¬ 
gily,” answered the squirrel lady. “But I wish 
you could find something to make my little boy 
Billie feel better.” 

“Why, is he ill?” asked the bunny uncle, sur¬ 
prised like, and he looked across the room where 
Billy Bushytail was curled up in a big rocking 
18 


Uncle Wiggily and the Wintergreen 19 


chair, with his tail held over his head like an um¬ 
brella, though it was not raining. 

“No, Billie isn’t ill,” said Mrs. Bushytail. 
“But he says he doesn’t know what to do to have 
any fun, and I am afraid he is a little peevish.” 

“Oh, that isn’t right,” said Mr. Longears. 
“Little boys, whether they are squirrels, rabbits 
or real children, should try to be jolly and 
happy, and not peevish.” 

“How can a fellow be happy when there’s no 
fun?” asked Billie, sort of cross-like. “My 
brother Johnnie got out of school early, and he 
and the other animal boys have gone off to play 
where I can’t find them. I had to stay in, be¬ 
cause I didn’t know my nut-cracking lesson, and 
now I can’t have any fun. Oh, dear! I don’t 
care!” 

Billie meant, I suppose, that he didn’t care 
what he said or did, and that isn’t right. But 
Uncle Wiggily only pinkled his twink nose. 
No, wait just a moment if you please. He just 
twinkled his pink nose behind the squirrel boy’s 
back, and then the bunny uncle said: 

“How would you like to come for a walk in 
the woods with me, Billie?” 

“Oh, that will be nice!” exclaimed the squirrel 
lady. “Do go, Billie.” 



20 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“No, I don’t want to!” chattered the boy 
squirrel, most impolitely. 

“Oh, that isn’t at all nice,” said Mrs. Bushy- 
tail. “At least thank Uncle Wiggily for asking 
you.” 

“Oh, excuse me, Uncle Wiggily,” said Billie, 
sorrylike. “I do thank you. But I want very 
much to have some fun, and there’s no fun in 
the woods. I know all about them. I know 
every tree and bush and stump. I want to go 
to a new place.” 

“Well, new places are nice,” said the bunny 
uncle, “but old ones are nice, too, if you know 
where to look for the niceness. Now come along 
with me, and we’ll see if we can’t have some fun. 
It is lovely in the woods now.” 

“I won’t have any fun there,” said Billie, 
crossly. “The woods are no good. Nothing 
good to eat grows there.” 

“Oh, yes there does—lots!” laughed Uncle 
Wiggily. “Why the nuts you squirrels eat 
grow in the woods.” 

“Yes, but there are no nuts now,” spoke the 
squirrel boy. “They only come in the Fall.” 

“Well, come, scamper along, anyhow,” in¬ 
vited Uncle Wiggily. “Who knows what may 
happen? It may even be an adventure. Come 
along, Billie.” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Wintergreen 21 


So, though he did not care much about it, 
Billie went. Uncle Wiggily showed the squir¬ 
rel boy where the early spring flowers were 
coming up, and how the Jacks, in their pulpits, 
were getting ready to preach sermons to the 
trees and bushes. 

“Hark! What’s that?” asked Billie, sud¬ 
denly, hearing a noise. 

“What does it sound like?” asked Uncle Wig- 

giiy- 

“Like bells ringing.” 

“Oh, it’s the bluebells—the bluebell flowers,” 
answered the bunny uncle 

“Why do they ring?” asked the little boy 
squirrel. 

“To call the little ants and lightning bugs to 
school,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, and Billy 
smiled. He was beginning to see that there 
were more things in the woods than he had 
dreamed of, even if he had scampered here and 
there among the trees ever since he was a little 
squirrel chap. 

On and on through the woods went the bunny 
uncle and Billie. They picked big, leafy ferns 
to fan themselves with, and then they drank 
with green leaf-cups from a spring of cool 
water. 



22 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


But no sooner had Billie taken the cold water 
than he suddenly cried: 

“Ouch! Oh, dear! Oh, my, how it hurts!” 

“What is it?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Did 
you bite your tongue or step on a thorn?” 

“It’s my tooth,” chattered Billie. “The cold 
water made it ache again. I need to go to Mr. 
Stubtail, the bear dentist, who will pull it out 
with his long claws. But I’ve been putting it 
off, and putting it off, and now—Oh, dear, how 
it aches! Wow!” 

“I’ll cure it for you!” said Uncle Wiggily. 
“Just walk along through the woods with me 
and I’ll soon stop your aching tooth.” 

“How can you?” asked Billie, holding his 
paw to his jaw to warm the aching tooth, for 
heat will often stop pain. “There isn’t any¬ 
thing here in the woods to cure toothache; is 
there?” 

“I think we shall find something,” spoke the 
bunny uncle. 

“Well, I wish we could find it soon!” cried 
Billie, “for my tooth hurts very much. Ouch!” 
and he hopped up and down, for the toothache 
was of the jumping kind. 

“Ah, ha! Here we have it!” cried Uncle Wig¬ 
gily, as he stooped over some shiny green leaves, 
growing close to the ground, and he pulled some 



Uncle Wiggily and the Wintergreen 23 


of them up. “Just chew these leaves a little and 
let them rest inside your mouth near the aching 
tooth/ 5 said Mr. Longears. “I think they will 
help you, Billie. 55 

So Billie chewed the green leaves. They 
smarted and burned a little, but when he put 
them near his tooth they made it nice and warm 
and soon the ache all stopped. 

“What was that you gave me, Uncle Wig¬ 
gily? 55 Billie asked. 

“Wintergreen, 55 answered Uncle Wiggily. “It 
grows in the vfoods, and is good for flavoring 
candy, as well as for stopping toothache. 55 

“I am glad to know that,” said Billie. “'The 
woods are a nicer place than I thought, and there 
is ever so much more in them than I dreamed. 
Thank you, Uncle Wiggily.” 

So, as his toothache was all better, Billie had 
good fun in the woods with the bunny uncle, 
until it was time to go home. And in the next 
story, if the top doesn’t fly off the coffee* pot and 
let the baked potato hide away from the egg- 
beater, when they play tag, I’ll tell you about 
Uncle Wiggily and the slippery elm, 



STORY III 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SLIPPERY ELM 

“Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?” 
asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the musk¬ 
rat lady housekeeper, as she saw the rabbit gen¬ 
tleman standing on the front steps of his hollow 
stump bungalow in the woods one morning. 
“Where are you going?” 

“Oh, just for a walk through the forest,” 
spoke the bunny uncle. “It is so nice in the 
woods, with the flowers coming up, and the 
leaves getting larger and greener every day, 
that I just love to walk there.” 

“Well,” said Nurse Jane with a laugh, “if you 
happen to see a bread-tree in the woods, bring 
home a loaf for supper.” 

“I will,” promised Uncle Wiggily. “JTou 
know, Nurse Jane, there really are trees on 
which bread fruit grows, though not in this coun¬ 
try. But I can get you a loaf of bread at the 
five and ten cent store, I dare say.” 

24 


Uncle Wiggily and the Slippery Elm 25 


“Do, please,’’ asked the muskrat lady. “And 
if you see a cocoanut tree you might bring home 
a cocoanut cake for supper.” 

“Oh, my!” laughed the rabbit gentleman. 
“I’m afraid there are no cocoanut trees in my 
woods. I could bring you home a hickory nut 
cake, perhaps.” 

“Well, whatever you like,” spoke Nurse Jane. 
“But don’t get lost, whatever you do, and if you 
meet with an adventure I hope it will be a nice 
one.” 

“So do I,” Uncle Wiggily said, as he hopped 
off, leaning on his red, white and blue stripped 
rheumatism crutch which Nurse Jane had 
gnawed for him out of a cornstalk. 

The old rabbit gentleman had not gone very 
far before he met Dr. Possum walking along in 
the woods, with his satchel of medicine on his 
tail, for Dr. Possum cured all the ill animals, 
you know. 

“What in the world are you doing, Dr. Pos¬ 
sum?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as he saw the ani¬ 
mal doctor pulling some bark off a tree. “Are 
you going to make a canoe, as the Indians. used 
to do?” 

“Oh, no,” answered Dr. Possum. “This is a 
slippery elm tree. The underside of the bark, 
next to the tree, and the tree itself, is very slip- 



26 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


pery when it is wet. Very slippery indeed.” 

“Well, I hope you don’t slip,” said Uncle 
Wiggily, kindly. 

“I hope so, too,” Dr. Possum said. “But I 
am taking this slippery elm bark to mix with 
some of the bitter medicine I have to give Billie 
Wagtail, the goat boy. When I put some bark 
from the slippery elm tree in Billie’s medicine it 
will slip down his throat so quickly that he will 
never know he took it.” 

“Good!” cried Uncle Wiggily, laughing. 
Then the bunny uncle went close to the tree, off 
which Dr. Possum was taking some bark, and 
felt of it with his paw. The tree was indeed as 
slippery as an icy sidewalk slide on Christmas 
eve. 

“My!” exclaimed Mr. Longears. “If I tried 
to climb up that tree I’d do nothing but slip 
down.” 

“That’s right,” said Dr. Possum. “But I 
must hurry on now to give Billie Wagtail his 
medicine.” 

So Dr. Possum went on his w r ay and Uncle 
Wiggily hopped along until, pretty soon, he 
heard a rustling in the bushes, and a voice said: 

“But, Squeaky-Eeky dear, I can’t find any 
snow hill for you to ride down on your sled. The 
snow is all gone, you see. It is Spring now.” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Slippery Elm 27 


“Oh, dear!” cried another voice. “Such a lot 
of trouble. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” 

“Ha! Trouble!” said Uncle Wiggily to him¬ 
self. “This is where I come in. I must see if I 
cannot help them.” 

He looked through the bushes, and there he 
saw Jillie Longtail, the little girl mouse, and 
with her was Squeaky-Eeky, the cousin mouse. 
And Squeaky-Eeky had a small sled with her, 

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Uncle 
Wiggily, for he saw that Squeaky-Eeky had 
been crying. “What is the matter, little mice?” 

“Oh, hello, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Jillie. “I 
don’t know what to do with my little cousin 
mouse. You see she wants to slide down hill on 
her Christmas sled, but there isn’t any snow on 
any of the hills now.” 

“Yo, that’s true, there isn’t,” said the bunny 
uncle. “But, Squeaky, why didn’t you slide 
down hill in the Winter, when there was snow?” 

“Because, I had the mouse-trap fever, then,” 
answered Squeaky-Eeky, “and I couldn’t go 
out. But now I am all better and I can be out, 
and oh, dear! I do so much want a ride down 
hill on my sled. Boo, hoo!” 

“Don’t cry, Squeaky, dear,” said Jillie. “If 
there is no snow you can’t slide down hill, you 
know.” 



28 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“But I want to,” said the little cousin mouse, 
unreasonable like. 

“But you can’t; so please be nice,” begged 
Jillie. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Squeaky. “I do so much 
want to slide down hill on my sled.” 

“And you shall!” suddenly exclaimed Uncle 
Wiggily. “Come with me, Squeaky.” 

“Why, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Jillie. “How 
can you give Squeaky a slide down hill when 
there is no snow? You need a slippery snow hill 
for sleigh-riding.” 

“I am not so sure of that,” spoke Uncle Wig¬ 
gily, with a smile. “Let us see.” 

Off through the woods he hopped, with Jillie 
and Squeaky following. Pretty soon Uncle 
Wiggily came to a big tree that had fallen down, 
one end being raised up higher than the other,, 
like a hill, slanting. 

With his strong paws and his sharp teeth, the 
rabbit gentleman began peeling the bark off the 
tree, showing the white wood underneath. 

“What are you doing, Uncle Wiggily?” asked 
Jillie. 

“This is a slippery elm tree, and I am making 
a hill so Squeaky-Eeky can slide down,” an¬ 
swered the bunny uncle. “Underneath the bark 
the trunk of the elm tree is very slippery. Dr* 



Uncle Wiggily and the Slippery Elm 29 


Possum told me so. See how my paw slips!” 
And indeed it did, sliding down the sloping tree 
almost as fast as you can eat a lolly pop. 

Uncle Wiggily took off a lot of bark from the 
elm tree, making a long, sliding, slippery place. 

“Now, try that with your sled, Squeaky- 
Eeky,” said the bunny uncle. And the little 
cousin mouse did. She put her sled on the 
slanting tree, sat down and Jillie gave her a lit¬ 
tle push. Down the slippery elm tree went 
Squeaky as fast as anything, coming to a stop 
in a pile of soft leaves. 

“Oh, what a lovely slide!” cried Squeaky. 
“You try it, Jillie.” And the little mouse girl 
did. 

“Who would think,” she said, “that you could 
slide down a slippery elm tree? But you can.” 

Then she and Squeaky took turns sliding 
down hill, even though there was no snow, and 
the slippery elm tree didn’t mind it a bit, but 
rather liked it. 

And if the coal man doesn’t take away our 
gas shovel to shoot some tooth powder into the 
wax doll’s pop gun, I’ll tell you next about 
Uncle Wiggily and the sassafras. 



STORY IV 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SASSAFRAS 

“Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Get 
up!” called Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the 
muskrat lady housekeeper, as she stood at the 
foot of the stairs of the hollow stump bungalow 
and called up to the rabbit gentleman one morn¬ 
ing. 

“Hurry down, Mr. Longears,” she went on. 
“This is the last day I am going to bake buck¬ 
wheat cakes, and if you want some nice hot ones, 
with maple sugar sauce on, you’d better hurry.” 

No answer came from the bunny uncle. 

“Why, this is strange,” said Nurse Jane to 
herself. “I wonder if anything can have hap¬ 
pened to him? Did he have an adventure in the 
night? Did the bad skillery-scalery alligator, 
with humps on its tail, carry him off?” 

Then she called again: 

“Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Aren’t 
you going to get up? Come down to breakfast. 
Aren’t you going to get up and come down?” 

30 


Uncle Wiggily and the Sassafras 81 


“No, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy,” replied the bunny 
uncle, “not to give you a short answer, I am not 
going to get up, or come down or eat breakfast 
or do anything,” and Mr. Longears spoke as 
though his head was hidden under the bed 
clothes, which it was. 

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily, whatever is the mat¬ 
ter?” asked Nurse Jane, surprised like and 
anxious. 

“I don’t feel at all well,” was the answer. “I 
think I have the epizootic, and I don’t want any 
breakfast.” 

“Oh, dear!” cried Nurse Jane. “And all the 
nice cakes I have baked. I know what I’ll do,” 
she said to herself. “I’ll call in Dr. Possum. 
Perhaps Uncle Wiggily needs some of the roots 
and herbs that grow in the woods—wintergreen, 
slippery elm or something like that. I’ll call 
Dr. Possum.” 

And when the animal doctor came he looked 
at the bunny uncle’s tongue, felt of his ears, and 
said: 

“Ha! Hum! You have the Spring fever, 
Uncle Wiggily. What you need is sassafras.” 

“Nurse Jane has some in the bungalow,” 
spoke Mr. Longears. “Tell her to make me 
some tea from that.” 

“No, what is needed is fresh sassafras,” said 



32 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


Dr. Possum. “And, what is more, you must go 
out in the woods and dig it yourself. That will 
be almost as good for your Spring fever as the 
sassafras itself. So hop out, and dig some of 
the roots.” 

“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily, fussy like. 
“I don’t want to. I’d rather stay here in bed.” 

“But you can’t!” cried Dr. Possum in his 
jolly voice. “Out with you!” and he pulled the 
bed clothes off the bunny uncle so he had to get 
up to keep warm. 

“Well, I’ll just go out and dig a little sassa¬ 
fras root to please him,” thought Uncle Wig¬ 
gily to himself, “and then I’ll come back and 
stay in bed as long as I please. It’s all non¬ 
sense thinking I have to have fresh root—the 
old is good enough.” 

“I do feel quite wretched and lazy like,” said 
Uncle Wiggily to himself, as he limped along 
on his red, white and blue-striped barber-pole 
rheumatism crutch, that Nurse Jane had 
gnawed for him out of a cornstalk. “As soon as 
I find some sassafras I’ll pull up a bit of the 
root and hurry back home and to bed.” 

Pretty soon the bunny uncle saw where some 
of the sassafras roots were growing, with their 
queer three-pointed leaves, like a mitten, with a 
place for your finger and thumb. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Sassafras 88 


“Now to pull up the root,” said the bunny 
uncle, as he dug down in the ground a little way 
with his paws, to get a better hold. 

But pulling up sassafras roots is not as easy 
as it sounds, as you know if you have ever tried 
it. The roots go away down in the earth, and 
they are very strong. 

Uncle Wiggily pulled and tugged and twisted 
and turned, but he could break off only little 
bits of the underground stalk. 

“This won’t do!” he said to himself. “If I 
don’t get a big root Dr. Possum will, perhaps, 
send me back for more. I’ll try again.” 

He got his paws under a nice, big root, and 
he was straining his back to pull it up, when, all 
of a sudden, he heard a voice saying: 

“How do you do?” 

“Oh, hello!” exclaimed the bunny, looking 
up quickly, and expecting to see some friend of 
his, like Grandpa Goosey Gander, or Sammie 
Littletail, the rabbit boy. But, instead, he saw 
the bad old fox, who had, so many times, tried 
to catch the rabbit gentleman. 

“Oh!” said Uncle Wiggily, astonished like. 
And again he said: “Oh!” 

“Surprised, are you?” asked the fox, sort of 
curling his whiskers around his tongue, sarcastic 
fashion. 



34 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“A little—yes,” answered Uncle Wiggily. “I 
didn’t expect to see you.” 

“But I’ve been expecting you a long time,” 
said the fox, grinning most impolitely. “In 
fact, I’ve been waiting for you. Just as soon as 
you have pulled up that sassafras root you may 
come with me. I’ll take you off to my den, to 
my dear little foxes Eight, Nine and Ten. Those 
are their numbers. It’s easier to number them 
than name them.” 

“Oh, indeed?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as po¬ 
litely as he could, considering everything. “And 
so you won’t take me until I pull this sassafras 
root?” 

“No, I’ll wait until you have finished,” spoke 
the fox. “I like you better, anyhow, flavored 
with sassafras. So pull away.” 

Uncle Wiggily tried to pull up the root, but 
he did not pull very hard. 

“For,” he thought, “as soon as I pull it up 
then the fox will take me, but if I don’t pull it 
he may not.” 

“What’s the matter? Can’t you get that root 
up?” asked the fox, after a while. “I can’t wait 
all day.” 

“Then perhaps you will kindly pull it up for 
me,” said the bunny uncle. “I can’t seem to do 
it.” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Sassafras 35 


“All right, I will,” the fox said. Uncle Wig¬ 
gily hopped to one side. The fox put his paws 
under the sassafras root. And he pulled and he 
pulled and he pulled, and finally, with a double 
extra strong pull, he pulled up the root. But it 
came up so suddenly, just as when you break 
the point off your pencil, that the fox keeled 
over backward in a peppersault and somersault 
also. 

“Oh, wow!” cried the fox, as he bumped his 
nose. “What happened?” But Uncle Wiggily 
did not stay to tell. Away ran the bunny 
through the woods, as fast as he could go, for¬ 
getting all about his Spring fever. He was all 
over it. 

“I thought the sassafras would cure you,” 
said Dr. Possum, when Uncle Wiggily was 
safely home once more. 

“The fox helped some,” said the bunny uncle, 
with a laugh. 

And if the black cat doesn’t cover himself 
with talcum powder and make believe he’s a 
white kid glove going to a dance, I’ll tell you 
next about Uncle Wiggily and Jack-in-the- 
Pulpit, 



STORY V 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PULPIT-JACK 

“Well, how are you feeling today, Uncle 
Wiggily?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the 
muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw the rabbit 
gentleman taking his tall silk hat down off the 
china closet, getting ready to go for a walk in 
the woods one morning. 

“Why, I’m feeling pretty fine, Nurse Jane,” 
answered the bunny uncle. “Since I ran home 
'* to get away from the fox, after he turned a 
peppersault from pulling too strong to get up 
the sassafras root, I feel much better, thank 
you.” 

“Good!” cried Nurse Jane. “Then perhaps 
you would not mind going to the store for me.” 

“Certainly not,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “What 
do you wish?” 

“A loaf of bread,” replied Miss Fuzzy 
Wuzzy, “also a box of matches and some sugar 
and crackers. But don’t forget the matches 
whatever you do.” 


36 


Uncle Wiggily and the Pulpit-Jack 37 


“I won’t/’ promised the bunny uncle, and 
soon he was hopping along through the woods 
wondering what sort of an adventure he would 
have this day. 

As he was going along keeping a sharp look¬ 
out for the bad fox, or the skillery-scalery alli¬ 
gator with the double jointed tail, Uncle Wig¬ 
gily heard a voice saying: 

“Oh, dear! I’ll never be able to get out from 
under the stone and grow tall as I ought. I’ve 
pushed and pushed on it, but I can’t raise it. Oh, 
dear; what a heavy stone!” 

“Ha! Some one under a stone!” said Uncle 
Wiggily to himself. “That certainly is bad 
trouble. I wonder if I cannot help?” 

The bunny uncle looked all around and down 
on the ground he saw a flat stone. Underneath 
it something green and brown was peeping out. 

“Was that you who called?” asked Mr. Long- 
ears. 

“It was,” came the answer. “I am a Jack-in- 
the-Pulpit plant, you see, and I started to grow 
up, as all plants and flowers do when summer 
comes. But when I had raised my head out of 
the earth I found a big stone over me, and now 
I can grow no more. I’ve pushed and pushed 
until my back aches, and I can’t lift the stone.” 



38 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“I’ll do it for you,” said Uncle Wiggily 
kindly, and he did, taking it off the Pulpit- 
Jack. 

Then the Jack began growing up, and he had 
been held down so long that he grew quite 
quickly, so that even while Uncle Wiggily was 
watching, the Jack and his pulpit were almost 
regular size. 

A Jack-in-the-Pulpit, you know, is a queer 
flower that grows in our woods. Sometimes it 
is called an Indian turnip, but don’t eat it, for it 
is very biting. The Jack is a tall green chap, 
who stands in the middle of his pulpit, which is 
like a little pitcher, with a curved top to it. A 
pulpit, you know, is where some one preaches on 
Sunday. 

“ Thank you very much for lifting the stone 
off me so I could grow,” said the Jack to Uncle 
Wiggily. “If ever I can do you a favor I will.” 

“Oh, pray don’t mention it,” replied the rab¬ 
bit gentleman, with a low bow. “It was a mere 
pleasure, I assure you.” 

Then the rabbit gentleman hopped on to the 
store, to get the matches, the crackers, the bread 
and other things for Nurse Jane. 

“And I must be sure not to forget the 
matches,” Uncle Wiggily said to himself. “If 



Uncle Wiggily and the Pulpit-Jack 39 


I did Nurse Jane could not make a fire to cook 
supper.” 

There was an April shower while Uncle 
Wiggily was in the store, and he waited for the 
rain to stop falling before he started back to his 
hollow stump bungalow. Then the sun came out 
very hot and strong and shone down through the 
wet leaves of the trees in the woods. 

Along hopped the bunny uncle, and he was 
wondering what he would have for supper that 
night. 

“I hope it’s something good,” he said, “to 
make up for not having an adventure.” 

“Don’t you call that an adventure—lifting 
the stone off the Jack-in-the-Pulpit so he could 
grow?” asked a bird, sitting up in a tree. 

“Well, that was a little adventure,” said 
Uncle Wiggily. “But I want one more excit¬ 
ing; a big one.” 

And he is going to have one in about a min¬ 
ute. Just you wait and you’ll hear all about it. 

The sun was shining hotter and hotter, and 
Uncle Wiggily was thinking that it was about 
time to get out his extra-thin fur coat when, all 
of a sudden, he felt something very hot behind 
him. 

“Why, that sun is really burning!” cried the 



40 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


bunny. Then he heard a little ant boy, who was 
crawling on the ground, cry out: 

“Fire! Fire! Fire! Uncle Wiggily’s bundle 
of groceries is on fire! Fire! Fire!” 

“Oh, my!” cried the bunny uncle, as he felt 
hotter and hotter. “The sun must have set fire 
to the box of matches. Oh, what shall I do?” 
He dropped his bundle of groceries, and looking 
around at them he saw, surely enough, the 
matches were on fire. They were all blazing. 

“Call the fire department! Get out the water 
bugs!” cried the little ant boy. “Fire! Water! 
Water! Fire!” 

“That’s what I want—water,” cried the 
bunny uncle. “Oh, if I could find a spring of 
water. I could put the blazing matches, save 
some of them, perhaps, and surely save the 
bread and crackers. Oh, for some water!” 

Uncle Wiggily and the ant boy ran here and 
there in the woods looking for a spring of water. 
But they could find none, and the bread and 
crackers were just beginning to burn when a 
voice cried: 

“Here is water, Uncle Wiggily!” 

“Where? Where?” asked the rabbit gentle¬ 
man, all excited like. “Where?” 

“Inside my pulpit,” was the answer, and 
Uncle Wiggily saw, not far away, the Jack- 



Uncle Wiggily and the Pulpit-Jack 41 


plant he had helped from under the stone. 
“When it rained a while ago, my pitcher-pulpit 
became filled with water,” went on Jack. “If 
you will just tip me over, sideways, I’ll splash 
the water on the blazing matches and put them 
out.” 

“I’ll do it!” cried Uncle Wiggily, and he 
quickly did. The pulpit held water as good as 
a milk pitcher could, and when the water 
splashed on the fire that fire gave one hiss, like 
a goose, and went out. 

“Oh, you certainly did me a favor, Mr. Pul¬ 
pit-Jack,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Though the 
matches are burned, the bread and crackers are 
saved, and I can get more matches.” Which he 
did, so Nurse Jane could make a fire in the 
stove. 

So you see Uncle Wiggily had an adventure 
after all, and quite an exciting one, too, and if 
the lemon drop doesn’t fall on the stick of pep¬ 
permint candy and make it sneeze when it goes 
to the moving pictures, I’ll tell you next about 
Uncle Wiggily and the violets. 



STORY VI 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE VIOLETS 

Down in the kitchen of the hollow stump 
bungalow there was a great clattering of pots 
and pans. Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit 
gentleman who lived in the bungalow, sat up in 
bed, having been awakened by the noise, and he 
said: 

“Well, I wonder what Nurse Jane Fuzzy 
Wuzzy is doing now? She certainly is busy at 
something, and it can’t be making the break¬ 
fast buckwheat cakes, either, for she has stopped 
baking them.” 

“I say, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, what’s going on 
down in your kitchen?” called the rabbit gentle¬ 
man out loud. 

“I’m washing,” answered the muskrat lady. 

“Washing what; the dishes?” the bunny uncle 
wanted to know. “If you wash them as hard as 
it sounds, there won’t be any of them left for 
dinner, and I haven’t had my breakfast yet.” 

42 


Uncle Wiggily and the Violets 


43 


“No, I’m getting ready to wash the clothes, 
and I wish you’d come down and eat, so I can 
clear away the table things!” called the muskrat 
lady. 

“Oh, dear! Clothes-washing!” cried Uncle 
Wiggily, making his pink nose twinkle in a 
funny way. “I don’t like to be around the 
bungalow when that is being done. I guess I’ll 
get my breakfast and go for a walk. Clothes 
have to be washed, I suppose,” went on the rab¬ 
bit gentleman, “and when Nurse Jane has been 
ill I have washed them myself, but I do not like 
it. I’ll go off in the woods.” 

And so, haying had his breakfast of carrot 
pudding, with turnip sauce sprinkled over the 
top, Uncle Wiggily took his red, white and blue 
striped rheumatism crutch, and hopped along. 

The woods were getting more and more beau¬ 
tiful every day as the weather grew warmer. 
The leaves on the trees were larger, and here and 
there, down in the green moss, that was like a 
carpet on the ground, could be seen wild flowers 
growing up. 

“I wonder what sort of an adventure I will 
have today?” thought the bunny uncle as he 
went on and on. “A nice one, I hope.” 

And, as he said this, Uncle Wiggily heard 
some voices speaking. 



44 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“Oh, dear!” exclaimed a sad little voice, “no 
one will ever see us here! Of what use are we 
in the world? We are so small that we cannot 
be noticed. We are not brightly colored, like 
the red rose, and all that will happen to us will 
be that a cow will come along and eat us, or step 
on us with her big foot.” 

“Hush! You musn’t talk that way,” said an¬ 
other voice. “5[° u were put here to grow, and 
do the best you know how. Don’t be finding 
fault.” 

“I wonder who can be talking?” said Uncle 
Wiggily. “I must look around.” So he looked 
up in the air, but though he heard the leaves 
whispering he knew they had not spoken. Then 
he looked to the right, to the left, in front and 
behind, but he saw no one. Then he looked 
down, and right at his feet was a clump of blue 
violet flowers. 

“Did you speak?” asked Uncle Wiggily of 
the violets. 

“Yes,” answered one who had been finding 
fault. “I was telling my sisters and brothers 
that we are of no use in the world. We just 
grow up here in the woods, where no one sees us, 
and we never can have any fun. I want to be a 
big, red rose and grow in a garden.” 

“Oh, my!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I never 



Uncle Wiggily and the Violets 


45 


heard of a violet turning into a rose.” Then the 
mother violet spoke and said: 

“I tell my little girl-flower that she ought to 
be happy to grow here in the nice woods, in the 
green moss, where it is so cool and moist. But 
she does not seem to be happy, nor are some of 
the other violets.” 

“Well, that isn’t right,” Uncle Wiggily said, 
kindly. “I am sure you violets can do some 
good in this world. You are pretty to look at, 
and nice to smell, and that is more than can be 
said of some things.” 

“Oh, I want to do something big!” said the 
fault-finding violet. “I want to go out in the 
world and see things.” 

“So do I! And I! And I!” cried other 
violets. 

Uncle Wiggily thought for a minute, and 
then he said: 

“I’ll do this. I’ll dig up a bunch of you vio¬ 
lets, who want a change, and take you with me 
for a walk. I will leave some earth on your roots 
so you won’t die, and we shall see what hap¬ 
pens.” 

“Oh, goodie!” cried the violets. So Uncle 
Wiggily dug them up with his paws, putting 
some cool moss around their roots, and when 



46 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


they had said good-by to the mother violet away 
they went traveling with the bunny uncle. 

“Oh, this is fine!” cried the first violet, nod¬ 
ding her head in the breeze. “It is very kind of 
you, Uncle Wiggily to take us with you. I wish 
we could do you a kindness.” 

And then a bad old fox jumped out from be¬ 
hind a stump, and started to grab the rabbit 
gentleman. But when the fox saw the pretty 
violets and smelled their sweetness, the fox felt 
sorry at having been bad and said: 

“Excuse me, Uncle Wiggily. I’m sorry I 
tried to bite you. The sight of those pretty vio¬ 
lets makes me feel happier than I did. I am 
going to try to be good.” 

“I am glad of it,” said Mr. Longears, as he 
hopped on through the woods. “You see, you 
have already done some good in this world, even 
if you are only tiny flowers,” he said to the 
violets. 

Then Uncle Wiggily went on to his hollow 
stump bungalow, and, reaching there, , he heard 
Nurse Jane saying: 

“Oh, dear! This is terrible. Here I have the 
clothes almost washed, and not a bit of bluing 
to rinse them in. Oh, why didn’t I tell Wiggy 
to bring me some blueing from the store? Oh, 
dear!” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Violets 


47 


“Ha! Perhaps these will do to make blue 
water,” said the bunny uncle, holding out the 
bunch of violets. “Would you like to help 
Nurse Jane?” he asked the flowers. 

“Oh, yes, very much!” cried the violets. 

Then Uncle Wiggily dipped their blue heads 
in the clean rinsing water—just a little dip so 
as not to make them catch cold—and enough 
color came out of the violets to make the water 
properly blue for Nurse Jane’s clothes, so she 
could finish the washing. 

“So you see you have done more good in the 
world,” said Uncle Wiggily to the flowers. 
Then he took them back and planted them in the 
woods where they lived, and very glad they were 
to return, too. 

“We have seen enough of the world,” they 
said, and thereafter they were glad enough to 
live down in the moss with the mother violet. 
And if the umbrella doesn’t turn inside out so 
the handle tickles its ribs and makes it laugh in 
school, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily 
and the high tree. 



STORY VII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE HIGH TREE 

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit 
gentleman, stood in front of the looking glass 
trying on a new tall silk hat he had just bought 
ready for Easter Sunday, which would happen 
in about a week or two. 

“Do you think it looks well on me, Nurse 
Jane?” asked the bunny uncle, of the muskrat 
lady housekeeper, who came in from the kitchen 
of the hollow stump bungalow, having just fin¬ 
ished washing the dishes. 

“Why, yes, I think your new hat is very nice,” 
she said. 

“Do you think I ought to have the holes for 
my ears cut a little larger?” asked the bunny 
uncle. “I mean the holes cut, not my ears.” 

“Well, just a little larger wouldn’t hurt any,” 
replied Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. “I’ll cut them for 
you,” and she did, with her scissors. For Uncle 
Wiggily had to wear his tall silk hat with his 
ears sticking up through holes cut in it. His 
43 











































































































































































































































































































































Uncle Wiggily and the High Tree 49 


ears were too large to go under the hat, and he 
could not very well fold them down. 

“There, now I guess I’m all right to go for a 
walk in the woods,” said the rabbit gentleman, 
taking another look at himself in the glass. It 
was not a proud look, you understand. Uncle 
Wiggily just wanted to look right and proper, 
and he wasn’t at all stuck up, even if his ears 
were, but he couldn’t help that. 

So off he started, wondering what sort of an 
adventure he would have that day. He passed 
the place where the blue violets were growing 
in the green moss—the same violets he had used 
to make Nurse Jane’s blueing water for her 
clothes the other day, as I told you. And the 
violets were glad to see the bunny uncle. 

Then Uncle Wiggily met Grandfather 
Goosey Gander, the nice old goose gentleman, 
and the two friends walked on together, talking 
about how much cornmeal you could buy with a 
lollypop, and all about the best way to eat fried 
ice cream carrots. 

“That’s a very nice hat you have on, Uncle 
Wiggily,” said Grandpa Goosey, after a bit. 

“Glad you like it,” answered the bunny uncle. 
“It’s for Easter.” 

“I think I’ll get one for myself,” went on Mr. 



50 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


Gander. “Do you think I would look well in 
it?” 

“Try on mine and see,” offered Uncle Wig¬ 
gily most kindly. So he took his new, tall silk 
hat off his head, pulling his ears out of the holes 
Nurse Jane had cut for them, and handed it to 
Grandfather Goosey Gander—handed the hat, 
I mean, not his ears, though of course the holes 
went with the hat. 

“There, how do I look?” asked the goose gen¬ 
tleman. 

“Quite stylish and proper,” replied Mr. 
Longears. 

“I’d like to see myself before I buy a hat like 
this,” went on Grandpa Goosey. “I hope it 
doesn’t make me look too tall.” 

“Here’s a spring of water over by this old 
stump,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “You can see 
yourself in that, for it is just like a looking 
glass.” 

Grandpa Goosey leaned over to see how 
Uncle Wiggily’s tall, silk hat looked, when, all 
of a sudden, along came a puff of wind, caught 
the hat under the brim, and as Grandpa Goosey 
had no ears to hold it on his head (as the bunny 
uncle had) away sailed the hat up in the air, and 
it landed right in the top of a big, high tree. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily. 



Uncle Wiggily and the High Tree 51 


“Oh, dear!” said Grandpa Goosey. “I’m very 
sorry that happened. Oh, dear!” 

“It wasn’t your fault at all,” spoke Uncle 
Wiggily kindly. “It was the wind.” 

“But with your nice, new tall silk hat up in 
that high tree, how are we ever going to get it 
down,” asked the goose gentleman. 

“I don’t know,” answered Uncle Wiggily. 
“Let me think.” 

So he thought for a minute or two, and then 
he said: 

“There are three ways by which we may get 
the hat down. One is to ask the wind to blow 
it back to us, another is to climb up the tree and 
get the hat ourselves, and the third is to ask the 
tree to shake it down to us. We’ll try the wind 
first.” 

So Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey 
asked the wind that had blown the hat up in the 
top of the high tree to kindly blow it back again. 
But the wind had gone far out to sea, and would 
not be back for a week. So that way of getting 
the hat was of no use. 

“Mr. High Tree, will you kindly shake my 
hat down to me?” begged Uncle Wiggily next. 

“I would like to, very much,” the tree an¬ 
swered politely, “but I cannot shake when there 
is now wind to blow me. We trees cannot shake 



52 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


ourselves, you know. We can only shake when 
the wind blows us, and until the wind conies 
back I cannot shake.” 

“Too bad!” said Uncle Wiggily. “Then the 
only way left for us to do, Grandpa Goosey, is 
to climb the tree.” 

But this was easier said than done, for neither 
a rabbit nor a goose gentleman is made for 
climbing up trees, though when he was a young 
chap Grandpa Gosey had flown up into little 
trees, and Uncle Wiggily had jumped over 
them. But that was long, long ago. 

Try as they did, neither the rabbit gentleman 
nor the goose gentleman could climb up after 
the tall silk hat. 

“What are we going to do?” asked Grandpa 
Goosey. 

“I don’t know,” replied Mr. Longears. “I 
guess I’ll have to go get Billie or Johnnie 
Bushy tail, the squirrel boys, to climb the tree for 
us. Yes, that’s what I’ll do; and then I can get 
my hat.” 

Uncle Wiggily started off through the woods 
to look for one of the Bushytail chaps, while 
Grandpa Goosey stayed near the tree, to catch 
the hat in case it should happen to fall by itself. 

All of a sudden Uncle Wiggily heard some 
one coming along whistling, and then he heard 



Uncle Wiggily and the High Tree 53 


a loud pounding sound, and next he saw Toodle 
Flat-tail, the beaver boy, walking in the woods. 

“Oh, Toodle! You’re the very one I want!” 
cried Uncle Wiggily. “My hat is in a high tree 
and I can’t get it. With your strong teeth, just 
made for cutting down trees, will you kindly cut 
down this one, and get my hat for me?” 

“I will,” said the little beaver chap. But 
when he began to gnaw the tree, to make it fall, 
the tree cried: 

“Oh, Mr. Wind, please come and blow on me 
so I can shake Uncle Wiggily’s hat to him, and 
then I won’t have to be gnawed down. Please 
blow, Mr. Wind.” 

So the wind hurried back and blew the tree 
this way and that. Down toppled Uncle Wig¬ 
gily’s hat, not in the least hurt, and so every¬ 
thing was all right again, and Uncle Wiggily 
and Grandpa Goosey and Toodle Flat-tail were 
happy. And the tree was extra glad as it did 
not have to be gnawed down. 

And if the little mouse doesn’t go to sleep in 
the cat’s cradle and scare poor pussy so her tail 
swells up like a balloon, I’ll tell you next about 
Uncle Wiggily and the peppermint. 



STORY VIII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PEPPERMINT 

“Uncle Wiggily, would you mind going to 
the store for me?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy 
Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, one 
morning, as she came in from the kitchen of the 
hollow stump bungalow, where she had been 
getting ready the breakfast for the rabbit gen¬ 
tleman. 

“Go to the store? Why of course I'll go, Miss 
Fuzzy Wuzzy,” answered the bunny uncle. 
“Which store?” 

“The drug store.” 

“The drug store? What do you want; talcum 
powder or court plaster?” 

“Neither one,” answered Nurse Jane. “I 
want some peppermint.” 

“Peppermint candy?” Uncle Wiggily wanted 
to know. 

“Not exactly,” went on Nurse Jane. “But I 
want a little of the peppermint juice with which 
some kind of candy is flavored. I want to take 
54 


Uncle Wiggily and the Peppermint 55 


some peppermint juice myself, for I have indi¬ 
gestion. Dr. Possum says peppermint is good 
for it. I must have eaten a little too much 
cheese pudding last night.” 

“I’ll get you the peppermint with pleasure,” 
said the bunny uncle, starting off with his tall 
silk hat and his red, white and blue striped rheu¬ 
matism barber pole crutch. 

“Better get it in a bottle,” spoke Nurse Jane, 
with a laugh. “You can’t carry peppermint in 
your pocket, unless it’s peppermint candy, and I 
don’t want that kind.” 

“All right,” Uncle Wiggily said, and then, 
with the bottle, which Nurse Jane gave him, he 
hopped on, over the fields and through the woods 
to the drug store. 

But when he got there the cupboard was 
bare—. No! I mustn’t say that. It doesn’t 
belong here. I mean when Uncle Wiggily 
reached the drug store it was closed, and there 
was a sign in the door which said the monkey- 
doodle gentleman who kept the drug store had 
gone to a baseball-moving-picture show, and 
wouldn’t be back for a long while. 

“Then I wonder where I am going to get 
Nurse Jane’s peppermint?” asked Uncle Wig¬ 
gily of himself. “I’d better go see if Dr. Possum 
has any.” 



56 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


But while Uncle Wiggily was going on 
through the woods once more, he gave a sniff 
and a whiff, and, all of a sudden, he smelled a 
peppermint smell. 

The rabbit gentleman stood still, looking 
around and making his pink nose twinkle like a 
pair of roller skates. While he was doing this 
along came a cow lady chewing some grass for 
her complexion. 

“What are you doing here, Uncle Wiggily?” 
asked the cow lady. 

Uncle Wiggily told her how he had gone to 
the drug store for peppermint for Nurse Jane, 
and how he had found the store closed, so he 
could not get any. 

“But I smell peppermint here in the woods,” 
went on the bunny uncle. “Can it be that the 
drug store monkey doodle has left some here for 
me?” 

“No, what you smell is—that,” said the cow 
lady, pointing her horns toward some green 
plants growing near a little babbling brook of 
water. The plants had dark red stems that were 
square instead of round. 

“It does smell like peppermint,” said Uncle 
Wiggily, going closer and sniffing and snuffing. 

“It is peppermint,” said the cow lady. “That 
is the peppermint plant you see.” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Peppermint 57 


“Oh, now I remember,” Uncle Wiggily ex¬ 
claimed. “They squeeze the juice out of the 
leaves, and thats peppermint flavor for candy or 
for indigestion.” 

“Exactly,” spoke the cow lady, “and I’ll help 
you squeeze out some of this juice in the bottle 
for Nurse Jane.” 

Then Uncle Wiggily and the cow lady 
pulled up some of the peppermint plants and 
squeezed out the juice between two clean, flat 
stones, the cow lady stepping on them while 
Uncle Wiggily caught the juice in the empty 
bottle as it ran out. 

“My! But that is strong!” cried the bunny 
uncle, as he smelled of the bottle of peppermint. 
It was so sharp that it made tears come into his 
eyes. “I should think that would cure indiges¬ 
tion and everything else,” he said to the cow 
lady. 

“Tell Nurse Jane to take only a little of it in 
sweet water,” said the cow lady. “It is very 
strong. So be careful of it.” 

“I will,” promised Uncle Wiggily. “And 
thank you for getting the peppermint for me. I 
don’t know what I would have done without you, 
as the drug store was closed.” 

Then he hopped on through the woods to the 
hollow stump bungalow. He had not quite 



58 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


reached it when, all of a sudden, there was a 
rustling in the bushes, and out from behind a 
bramble bush jumped a big black bear. Not a 
nice good bear, like Neddie or Beckie Stubtail, 
but a bear who cried: 

“Ah, ha! Oh, ho! Here is some one whom I 
can bite and scratch! A nice tender rabbit 
chap! Ah, ha! Oh, ho!” 

“Are—are you going to scratch and bite me?” 
asked Uncle Wiggily. 

“I am,” said the bear, snappish like. “Get 
ready. Here I come!” and he started toward 
Uncle Wiggily, who was so frightened that he 
could not hop away. 

“I’m going to hug you, too,” said the bear. 
Bears always hug, you know. 

“Well, this is, indeed, a sorry day for me,” 
said Uncle Wiggily, sadly. “Still, if you are 
going to hug, bite and scratch me, I suppose it 
can’t be helped.” 

“Not the least in the world can it be 
helped,” said the bear, cross-like and unpleasant. 
“So don’t try!” 

“Well, if you are going to hug me I had better 
take this bottle out of my pocket, so when you 
squeeze me the glass won’t break,” Uncle Wig¬ 
gily said. “Here, when you are through being 
so mean to me perhaps you will be good enough 



Uncle Wiggily and the Peppermint 59 


to take this to Nurse Jane for her indigestion, 
but don’t hug her.” 

“I won’t,” promised the bear, taking the bottle 
which Uncle Wiggily handed him. “What’s in 
it?” 

Before Uncle Wiggily could answer the bear 
opened the bottle, and, seeing something in it, 
cried: 

“I guess I’ll taste this. Maybe it’s good to 
eat.” Down his big, red throat he poured the 
strong peppermint juice, and then—well, I 
guess you know what happened. 

“Oh, wow! Oh, me! Oh, my! Wow! Ouch! 
Ouchie! Itchie!” roared the bear. “My throat 
is on fire! I must have some water!” And, 
dropping the bottle, away he ran to the spring, 
leaving Uncle Wiggily safe, and not hurt a bit. 

Then the rabbit gentleman hurried back and 
squeezed out more peppermint juice for Nurse 
Jane, whose indigestion was soon cured. And 
as for the bear, he had a sore throat for a week 
and a day. 

So this teaches us that peppermint is good for 
scaring bears, as well as for putting in candy. 
And if the snow man doesn’t come in our house 
and sit by the gas stove until he melts into a 
puddle of molasses, I’ll tell you next about 
Uncle Wiggily and the birch tree. 



STORY IX 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BIRCH TREE 

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old rab¬ 
bit gentleman, was walking along through the 
woods one afternoon, when he came to the hol¬ 
low stump school, where the lady mouse teacher 
taught the animal boys and girls how to jump, 
crack nuts, dig homes under ground, and do all 
manner of things that animal folk have to do. 

And just as the rabbit gentleman was wonder¬ 
ing whether or not school was out, he heard a 
voice inside the hollow stump, saying: 

“Oh, dear! I wish I had some one to help me. 
I’ll never get them clean all by myself. Oh, 
dear!” 

“Ha! That sounds like trouble!” thought 
Mr. Longears to himself. “I wonder who it is, 
and if I can help? I guess I’d better see.” 

He looked in through a window, and there he 
saw the lady mouse teacher cleaning off the 
school black-boards. The boards were all cov¬ 
ered with white chalk marks, you see. 

60 


Uncle Wiggily and the Birch Tree 61 


“What’s the matter, lady mouse teacher?” 
asked Uncle Wiggily, making a polite, low bow. 

“Oh, I told Johnnie and Billy Bushytail, the 
two squirrel boys, to stay in and clean off the 
black-boards, so they would be all ready for to¬ 
morrow’s lesson,” said the lady mouse. “But 
they forgot, and ran off to play ball with Jackie 
and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys. So 
I have to clean the boards myself. And I really 
ought to be home now, for I am very tired.” 

“Then you trot right along,” said Uncle Wig¬ 
gily, kindly. “Tie a knot in your tail, so you 
won’t step on it, and hurry along.” 

“But what about the black-boards?” asked the 
lady mouse. “They must be cleaned off.” 

“I’ll attend to that,” promised the bunny 
uncle. “I will clean them myself. Run along, 
Miss Mouse.” 

So Miss Mouse thanked the bunny uncle, and 
ran along, and the rabbit gentleman began 
brushing the chalk marks off the black-boards, 
at the same time humming a little tune that went 
this way: 

“I’d love to be a teacher, 

Within a hollow stump. 

I’d teach the children how to fall, 

And never get a bump. 



62 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


I’d let them out at recess, 

A game of tag to play; 

I’d give them all fresh lollypops 
’Most every other day!” 

“Oh, my! Wouldn’t we just love to come to 
school to you!” cried a voice at the window, and, 
looking up, Uncle Wiggily saw Billie Bushytail, 
the boy squirrel, and brother Johnnie with him. 

“Ha! What happened you two chaps?” 
asked the bunny uncle. “Why did you run off 
without cleaning the black-boards for the lady 
mouse teacher?” 

“We forgot,” said Johnnie, sort of ashamed- 
like and sorry. “That’s what we came back to 
do—clean the boards.” 

“Well, that was good of you,” spoke Uncle 
Wiggily. “But I have the boards nearly 
cleaned now.” 

“Then we will give them a dusting with our 
tails, and that will finish them,” said Billie, and 
the squirrel boys did, so the black-boards were 
very clean. 

“Now it’s time to go home,” said Uncle Wig¬ 
gily. So he locked the school, putting the key 
under the doormat, where the lady mouse could 
find it in the morning, and, with the Bushytail 
squirrel boys, he started off through the woods. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Birch Tree 63 


“You and Billie can go back to your play, 
now, Johnnie,” said the bunny uncle. “It was 
good of you to leave it to come back to do what 
you were told.” 

The three animal friends hopped and scram¬ 
bled on together, until, all of a sudden, the bad 
old fox, who so often had made trouble for 
Uncle Wiggily, jumped out from behind a bush, 
crying: 

“Ah, ha! Now I have you, Mr. Longears— 
and two squirrels besides. Good luck!” 

“Bad luck!” whispered Billie. 

The fox made a grab for the rabbit gentle¬ 
man, but, all of a sudden, the paw of the bad 
creature slipped in some mud and down he went, 
head first, into a puddle of water, coughing and 
sneezing. 

“Come on, Uncle Wiggily!” quickly cried 
Billie and Johnnie. “This is our chance. We’ll 
run away before the fox gets the water out of 
his eyes. He can’t see us now.” 

So away ran the rabbit gentleman and the 
squirrel boys, but soon the fox had dried his eyes 
on his big brush of a tail, and on he came after 
them. 

“Oh, I’ll get you! I’ll get you!” he cried, 
running very fast. But Uncle Wiggily and 
Billie and Johnnie ran fast, too. The fox was 



64 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


coming closer, however, and Billie, looking back, 
said: 

“Oh, I know what let’s do. Uncle Wiggily. 
Let’s take the path that leads over the duck 
pond ocean. That’s shorter, and we can get to 
your bungalow before the fox can catch us. He 
won’t dare come across the bridge over the duck 
pond, for Old Dog Percival will come out and 
bite him if he does.” 

“Very well,” said Uncle Wiggily, “over the 
bridge we will go.” 

But alas! Also sorrowfulness and sadness! 
When the three friends got to the bridge it 
wasn’t there. The wind had blown the bridge 
down, and there was no way of getting across 
the duck pond ocean, for neither Uncle Wiggily 
nor the squirrel boys could swim very well. 

“Oh, what are we going to do?” cried Billie, 
sadly. 

“We must get across somehow!” chattered 
Johnnie, “for here comes the fox!” 

And, surely enough the fox was coming, hav¬ 
ing by this time gotten all the water out of his 
eyes, so he could see very well. 

“Oh, if we 6nly had a boat!” exclaimed Uncle 
Wiggily, looking along the shore of the pond, 
but there was no boat to be seen. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Birch Tree 65 


Nearer and nearer came the fox! Uncle 
Wiggily and the squirrel boys were just going 
to jump in the water, whether or not they could 
swim, when, all at once, a big white birch tree on 
the edge of the woods near the pond, said: 

“Listen, Uncle Wiggily and I will save you. 
Strip off some of my bark. It will not hurt me, 
and you can make a little canoe boat of it, as the 
Indians used to do. Then, in the birch bark boat 
you can sail across the water and the fox can’t 
get you.” 

“Good! Thank you!” cried the bunny uncle. 
With their sharp teeth he, Billie and Johnnie 
peeled off long strips of birch bark. They 
quickly bent them in the shape of a boat and 
sewed up the ends with long thorns for needles 
and ribbon grass for thread. 

“Quick! Into the birch bark boat!” cried 
Uncle Wiggily, and they all jumped in, just as 
the fox came along. Billie and Johnnie held up 
their bushy tails, and Uncle Wiggily held up his 
tall silk hat for sails, and soon they were safe 
on the other shore and the fox, not being able to 
swim, could not get them. 

So that’s how the birch tree of the woods 
saved the bunny uncle and the squirrels, for 
which, I am very glad, as I want to write more 
stories about them. And if the gold fish doesn’t 



66 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


tickle the wax doll’s nose with his tail when she 
looks in the tank to see what he has for break¬ 
fast, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and 
the butternut tree. 



STORY X 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BUTTERNUT TREE 

“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Nurse Jane 
Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper of 
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit, as she 
looked in the pantry of the hollow stump bunga¬ 
low one day. “Well, I do declare!” 

“What’s the matter?” asked Mr. Longears, 
peeping over the top of his spectacles. “I hope 
that the chimney hasn’t fallen down, or the egg 
beater run away with the potato masher.” 

“No, nothing like that,” Nurse Jane said. 
“But we haven’t any butter!” 

“No butter?” spoke Uncle Wiggily, sort of 
puzzled like, and abstracted. 

“Not a bit of butter for supper,” went on 
Nurse Jane, sadly. 

“Ha! That sounds like something from 
Mother Goose. Not a bit of butter for supper,” 
laughed Uncle Wiggily. “Not a bit of batter- 
butter for the pitter-patter supper. If Peter 
Piper picked a pit of peckled pippers—” 

67 


68 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“Oh, don’t start that!” begged Nurse Jane. 
“All I need is some supper for butter—no some 
bupper for batter—oh, dear! I’ll never get it 
straight!” she cried. 

“I’ll say it for you,” said Uncle Wiggily, 
kindly. “I know what you want—some butter 
for supper. I’ll go get it for you.” 

“Thank you,” Nurse Jane exclaimed, and so 
the old rabbit gentleman started off over the 
fields and through the woods for the butter 
store. 

The monkey-doodle gentleman waited on him, 
and soon Uncle Wiggily was on his way back to 
the hollow stump bungalow with the butter for 
supper, and he was thinking how nice the carrot 
muffins would taste, for Nurse Jane had prom¬ 
ised to make some, and Uncle Wiggily was sort 
of smacking his whiskers and twinkling his nose, 
when, all at once, he heard some one in the woods 
calling: 

“Uncle Wiggily! Oh, I say, Uncle Wiggily! 
Can’t you stop for a moment and say how- 
d’-do?” 

“Why, of course, I can,” answered the bunny, 
and, looking around the corner of an old log, he 
saw Grandpa Whackum, the old beaver gentle¬ 
man, who lived with Toodle and Noodle Flat- 
tail, the beaver boys. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Butternut Tree 69 


“Come in and sit down for a minute and rest 
yourself,” invited Grandpa Whackum. 

“I will,” said Uncle Wiggily. “And I’ll leave 
my butter outside where it will be cool,” for 
Grandpa Whackum lived down in an under¬ 
ground house, where it was so warm, in summer, 
that butter would melt. 

Grandpa Whackum was a beaver, and he was 
called Whackum because he used to whack his 
broad, flat tail on the ground, like beating a 
drum, to warn the other beavers of danger. 
Beavers, you know, are something like big musk¬ 
rats, and they like water. Their tails are flat, 
like a pancake or egg turner. 

“Well, how are things with you, and how is 
Nurse Jane?” asked Grandpa Whackum. 

“Oh, everything is fine,” said Uncle Wiggily. 
“Nurse Jane is well. I’ve just been to the store 
to get her some butter.” 

“That’s just like you; always doing some¬ 
thing for some one,” said Grandpa Whackum, 
pleased like. 

Then the two friends talked for some little 
while longer, until it was almost 6 o’clock, and 
time for Uncle Wiggily to go. 

“I’ll take my butter and travel along,” he said. 

But when he went outside, where he had left 



70 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


the pound of butter on a flat stump, it wasn’t 
there. 

“Why, this is queer,” said the bunny uncle. “I 
wonder if Nurse Jane could have come along 
and taken it to the hollow stump bungalow her¬ 
self?” 

“More likely a bad fox took the butter,” 
spoke the old gentleman beaver. “But we can 
soon tell. I’ll look in the dirt around the stump 
and see whose footprints are there. A fox makes 
different tracks from a muskrat.” 

So Grandpa Whackum looked and he said: 

“Why, this is queer. I can only see beaver 
tracks and rabbit tracks near the stump. Only 
you and I were here and we didn’t take any¬ 
thing.” 

“But where is my butter?” asked Uncle Wig- 

gi!y- 

Just then, off in the woods, near the heaver 
house, came the sound of laughter and voices 
called: 

“Oh, it’s my turn now, Toodle.” 

“Yes, Noodle, and then it’s mine. Oh, what 
fun we are having, aren’t we?” 

“It’s Toodle and Noodle—my two beaver 
grandsons,” said Grandpa Whackum. “I won¬ 
der if they could have taken your butter? Come; 
we’ll find out.” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Butternut Tree 71 


They went softly over behind a clump of 
bushes and there they saw Toodle and Noodle 
sliding down the slanting log of a tree, that was 
like a little hill, only there was no snow on it. 

“Why, they’re coasting!” cried Grandpa 
Whackum. “And how they can do it without 
snow I don’t see.” 

“But I see!” said Uncle Wiggily. “Thosetwo 
little beaver boys have taken my butter that I 
left outside of your house and with the butter 
they have greased the slanting log until it is 
slippery as ice. That’s how they slide down— 
on Nurse Jane’s butter.” 

“Oh, the little rascals!” cried Grandpa 
Whackum. 

“Well, they didn’t mean anything wrong,” 
Uncle Wiggily kindly said. Then he called: 

“Toodle! Noodle! Is any of my butter left?” 

“Your butter?” cried Noodle, surprised like. 

“Was that your butter?” asked Toodle. “Oh, 
please forgive us! We thought no one wanted 
it, and we took it to grease the log so we could 
slide down. It was as good as sliding down a 
muddy, slippery bank of mud into the lake.” 

“We used all your butter,” spoke Noodle. 
“Every bit.” 

“Oh, dear! That’s too bad!” Uncle Wiggily 
said. “It is now after 6 o’clock and all the stores 



72 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


will be closed. How can I get more?” And he 
looked at the butter the beaver boys had spread 
on the tree. It could not be used for bread, as it 
was all full of bark. 

“Oh, how can I get some good butter for 
Nurse Jane?” asked the bunny uncle sadly. 

“Ha! I will give you some,” spoke a voice 
high in the air. 

“Who are you?” asked Uncle Wiggily, 
startled. 

“I am the butternut tree,” was the answer. 
“I’ll drop some nuts down and all you will have 
to do will be to crack them, pick out the meats 
and squeeze out the butter. It is almost as good 
as that which you buy in the store.” 

“Good!” cried Uncle Wiggily, “and thank 
you.” 

Then the butter tree rattled down some 
butternuts, which Uncle Wiggily took home, 
and Nurse Jane said the butter squeezed from 
them was very good. And Toodle and Noodle 
were sorry for having taken Uncle Wiggily’s 
other butter to make a slippery tree slide, but 
they meant no harm. 

So if the pussy cat doesn’t take the lollypop 
stick to make a mud pie, and not give any ice 
cream cones to the rag doll, I’ll tell you next 
about Uncle Wiggily and Lulu’s hat. 



STORX XI 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND LULU^S HAT 

“Uncle Wiggily, do you want to do some¬ 
thing for me?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, 
the muskrat lady housekeeper, of the rabbit 
gentleman one day as he started out from his 
hollow stump bungalow to take a walk in the 
woods. 

“Do something for you, Nurse Jane? Why, 
of course, I want to,” spoke Mr. Longears. 
“What is it?” 

“Just take this piece of pie over to Mrs. 
Wibblewobble, the duck lady,” went on Miss 
Fuzzy Wuzzy. “I promised to let her taste how 
I made apple pie out of cabbage leaves.” 

“And very cleverly you do it, too,” said Uncle 
Wiggily, with a polite bow. “I know, for I have 
eaten some myself. I will gladly take this pie 
to Mrs. Wibblewobble,” and off through the 
woods Uncle Wiggily started with it. 

He soon reached the duck lady’s house, and 
73 


74 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


Mrs. Wibblewobble was very glad indeed to get 
the piece of Nurse Jane’s pie. 

“I’ll save a bit for Lulu and Alice, my two 
little duck girls,” said Mrs. Wibblewobble. 

“Why, aren’t they home?” asked Uncle 
Wiggily. 

“No, Lulu has gone over to a little afternoon 
party which Nannie Wagtail, the goat girl, is 
having, and Alice has gone to see Grandfather 
Goosey Gander. Jimmie is off playing ball with 
Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog 
boys, so I am home alone.” 

“I hope you are not lonesome,” said Uncle 
Wiggily. 

“Oh, no, thank you,” answered the duck lady. 
“I have too much to do. Thank Nurse Jane for 
her pie.” 

“I shall,” Uncle Wiggily promised, as he 
started off through the woods again. He had 
not gone far before, all of a sudden, he did not 
stoop low enough as he was hopping under a 
tree and, the first thing he knew, his tall silk hat 
was knocked off his head and into a puddle of 
water. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily, as he 
picked up his hat. “I shall never be able to 
wear it again until it is cleaned and ironed. 



Uncle Wiggily and Lulu’s Hat 


75 


And how I can have that done out here in the 
woods is more than I know.” 

“Ah, but I know,” said a voice in a tree over¬ 
head. 

“Who are you, and what do you know?” asked 
the bunny uncle, surprised like and hopeful. 

“I know where you can have your silk hat 
cleaned and ironed smooth,” said the voice. “I 
am the tailor bird, and I do those things. Let 
me have your hat, Uncle Wiggily, and I’ll fix it 
for you.” 

Down flew the kind bird, and Uncle Wiggily 
gave him the hat. 

“But what shall I wear while I’m waiting?” 
asked the bunny uncle. “It is too soon for me to 
be going about without my hat. I’ll need some¬ 
thing on my head while you are fixing my silk 
stovepipe, dear Tailor Bird.” 

“Oh, that is easy,” said the bird. “Just pick 
some of those thick, green leafy ferns and make 
yourself a hat of them.” 

“The very thing!” cried Uncle Wiggily. 
Then he fastened some woodland ferns together 
and easily made himself a hat that would keep 
off the sun, if it would not keep off the rain. 
But then it wasn’t raining. 

“There you are, Uncle Wiggily!” called the 



76 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


tailor bird at last. “Your silk hat is ready to 
wear again.” 

“Thank you,” spoke the bunny uncle, as he 
laid aside the ferns, also thanking them. “Now 
I am like myself again,” and he hopped on 
through the woods, wondering whether or not 
he was to have any more adventures that day. 

Mr. Longears had not gone on very much 
farther before he heard a rustling in the bushes, 
and then a sad little voice said: 

“Oh, dear! How sad! I don't believe I’ll 
go to the party now! All the others would 
make fun of me! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” 

“Ha! That sounds like trouble!” said the 
bunny uncle. “I must see what it means.” 

He looked through the bushes and there, sit¬ 
ting on a log, he saw T Lulu Wibblewobble, the 
little duck girl, who was crying very hard, the 
tears rolling down her yellow bill. 

“Why, Lulu! What’s the matter?” asked 
Uncle Wiggily. 

“Oh, dear!” answered the little quack-quack 
child. “I can’t go to the party; that’s what’s 
the matter.” 

“Why can’t you go?” Uncle Wiggily wanted 
to know. “I saw your mother a little while 
ago, and she said you were going.” 

“I know I was going,” spoke Lulu, “but I’m 



Uncle Wiggily and Lulu’s Hat 77 


not now, for the wind blew my nice new hat 
into the puddle of muddy water, and now look 
at it!” and she held up a very much beraggled 
and debraggled hat of lace and straw and rib¬ 
bons and flowers. 

“Oh, dear! That hat is in a bad state, to be 
sure,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But don’t cry, 
Lulu. Almost the same thing happened to me 
and the tailor bird made my hat as good as 
ever. Mine was all mud, too, like yours. Come, 
I’ll take you to the tailor bird.” 

“You are very kind, Uncle Wiggily,” spoke 
Lulu, “but if I go there I may not get back in 
time for the party, and I want to wear my new 
hat to it, very much.” 

“Ha! I see!” cried the bunny uncle. “You 
want to look nice at the party. Well, that’s 
right, of course. And I don’t believe the tailor 
bird could clean your hat in time, for if is so 
fancy he would have to be very careful of it. 

“But you can do as I did, make a hat out 
of ferns, and wear that to Nannie Wagtail’s 
party. I’ll help you.” 

“Oh, how kind you are!” cried the little duck 
girl. 

So she went along with Uncle Wiggily to 
where the ferns grew in the wood, leaving her 



78 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


regular hat at the tailor bird’s nest to be cleaned 
and pressed. 

Uncle Wiggily made Lulu the cutest hat out 
of fern leaves. Oh, I wish you could have seen 
it. There wasn’t one like it even in the five and 
ten-cent store. 

“Wear that to Nannie’s party, Lulu,” said 
the rabbit gentleman, and Lulu did, the hat 
being fastened to her feathers with a long pin 
made from the stem of a fern. And when Lulu 
reached the party all the animal girls cried out: 

“Oh, what a sweet, lovely, cute, dear, cun¬ 
ning, swell and stylish hat! Where did you 
get it?” 

“Uncle Wiggily made it,” answered Lulu, 
and all the girls said they were going to get one 
just like it. And they did, so that fern hats 
became very fashionable and stylish in Wood¬ 
land, and Lulu had a fine time at the party. 

So this teaches us that even a mud puddle is 
of some use, and if the rubber plant doesn’t 
stretch too far, and tickle the gold fish under 
the chin making it sneeze, the next story w T ill 
be about Uncle Wiggily and the snow drops. 











































































































STORY XII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SNOW DROPS 

“Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Will 
you come with me?” called a voice under the 
window of the hollow stump bungalow, where 
the old gentleman rabbit was sitting, half 
asleep, one nice, warm afternoon. 

“Ha! Come with you? Who is it wants me 
to come with them?” asked the bunny gentle¬ 
man. “I hope it isn’t the bad fox, or the skil- 
lery-scalery alligator with humps on his tail that 
is calling. They’re always wanting me to go 
with them.” 

The rabbit looked out of the window and he 
heard some one laughing. 

“That doesn’t sound like a bad fox, nor yet 
an unpleasant alligator,” said Mr. Longears. 
“Who is it wants me to come with them?” 

“It is I—Susie Littletail, the rabbit girl,” 
was the answer. 

“And where do you want me to come?” asked 
Uncle Wiggily. 


79 


80 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“To the woods, to pick some flowers,” 
answered Susie. “The lady mouse teacher 
wants me to see how many kinds I can find. 
You know so much about the woods, Uncle 
Wiggily, that I wish you’d come with me.” 

“I will,” said the nice rabbit gentleman. 
“Wait until I get my tall silk hat and my red, 
white and blue striped barber pole rheumatism 
crutch.” 

And, when he had them, off he started, hold¬ 
ing Susie’s paw in his, and limping along under 
the green trees and over the carpet of green 
moss. 

Uncle Wiggily and the little rabbit girl found 
many kinds of flowers in the woods. There 
were violets, some white, some yellow and some 
purple, with others blue, like the ones Uncle 
Wiggily used to make blueing water for Nurse 
Jane’s clothes. And there were red flowers and 
yellow ones, and some Jacks-in-their-pulpits, 
which are very queer flowers indeed. 

“Here, Susie, is a new kind of blossom. 
Maybe you would like some of these,” said 
Uncle Wiggily, pointing to a bush that was 
covered with little round, white balls. 

“Oh, I didn’t know the snow had lasted this 
long!” Susie cried. “I thought it had melted 
long ago.” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Snow Drops 81 


“I don’t see any snow,” said Uncle Wiggily, 
looking around. 

“On that bush,” said Susie, pointing to the 
white one. 

“Oh!” laughed the bunny uncle. “That does 
look like snow, to be sure. But it isn’t, though 
the name of the flowers is snowdrop.” 

“Flowers! I don’t call them flowers!” said 
Susie. “They are only white balls.” 

“Don’t you want to pick any?” asked the 
rabbit. 

“Thank you, no,” Susie said. “I like prettier 
colored flowers than those, which are lust plain 
white.” 

“Well, I like them, and I’ll take some to 
Nurse Jane,” spoke the bunny uncle. So he 
picked a bunch of the snowdrops and carried 
them in his paws, while Susie gathered the 
brighter flowers. 

“I think those will be all teacher will want,” 
said the little rabbit girl at last. 

“Yes, we had better be getting home,” spoke 
Uncle Wiggily. “Nurse Jane will soon have 
supper ready. Won’t you come and eat with 
me, Susie?” 

“Thank you, I will, Uncle Wiggily,” and the 
little bunny girl clapped her paws; that is, as 
well as she could, on account of holding her 



82 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


flowers, for she loved to eat at Uncle Wiggily’s 
hollow stump bungalow, as did all the animal 
children. 

Well, Uncle Wiggily and Susie were going 
along and along through the woods, when, all 
of a sudden, as they passed a big rock, out from 
behind it jumped the bad old tail-pulling 
monkey. 

“Ah, ha!” chattered the monkey chap. “I am 
just in time, I see.” 

“Time for what?” asked Uncle Wiggily, sus¬ 
picious like. 

“To pull your tails,” answered the monkey. 
“I haven’t had any tails to pull in a long while, 
and I must pull some. So, though you rabbits 
haven’t very good tails for pulling, I must do 
the best I can. Now come to me and have your 
tails pulled. Come on!” 

“Oh, dear!” cried Susie. “I don’t want my 
tail pulled, even if it is very short.” 

“Nor I mine,” Uncle Wiggily said. 

“That makes no manner of difference to me,” 
chattered the monkey. “I’m a tail-pulling chap, 
and tails I must pull. So you might as well 
have it over with, now as later.” And he spoke 
just like a dentist who wants to take your lolly- 
pop away from you. 

“Pull our tails! Well, I guess you won’t!” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Snow Drops 83 


cried Uncle Wiggily suddenly. “Come on, 
Susie! Let’s run away!” 

Before the monkey could grab them Uncle 
Wiggily and Susie started to run. But soon 
the monkey was running after them, crying: 

“Stop! Stop! I must pull your tails!” 

“But we don’t want you to,” answered Susie. 

“Oh, but you must let me!” cried the monkey. 

Then he gave a great big, long, strong and 
double-jointed jump, like a circus clown going 
over the backs of fourteen elephants, and part 
of another one, and the monkey grabbed Uncle 
Wiggily by his ears. 

“Oh, let go of me, if you please!” begged the 
bunny. “I thought you said you pulled tails 
and not ears.” 

“I do pull tails when I can get hold of them,” 
said the malicious monkey. “But as I can’t 
easily get hold of your tail, and as your ears 
are so large that I can easily grab them, I’ll pull 
them instead. All ready now, a long pull, a 
strong pull and a pull altogether!” 

“Stop!” cried the bunny uncle, just as the 
monkey was going to give the three kinds of 
pull at once. “Stop!” 

“No!” answered the monkey. “No! No!” 

“Yes! Yes!” cried the bunny uncle. “If you 
don’t stop pulling my ears you’ll freeze!” and 



84 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


with that the bunny uncle pulled out from be¬ 
hind him, where he had kept them hidden, the 
bunch of white snowdrops. 

“Ah, ha!” cried Mr. Longears to the monkey, 
“you come from a warm country, where there 
is no snow or snowdrops. Now when you see 
these snow drops, shiver and shake—see how 
cold it is! Shiver and shake! Shake and shiver! 
Burr-r-r-r-r!” 

Uncle Wiggily made believe the flowers were 
real snow, sort of shivering himself (pretend 
like) and the tail-pulling chap, who was very 
much afraid of cold and snow and ice, chattered 
and said: 

“Oh, dear! Oh, how cold I am! Oh, I’m 
freezing. I am going back to my warm nest in 
the tree and not pull any tails until next 
summer!” 

And then the monkey ran away, thinking the 
snowdrops Uncle Wiggily had picked were bits 
of real snow. 

“I’m sorry I said the snowdrops weren’t 
nice,” spoke Susie, as she and Uncle Wiggily 
went safely home. “They are very nice. Only 
for them the monkey would have pulled our 
tails.” 

But he didn’t, you see, and if the bookworm 
doesn’t go to the moving pictures with the gold 



Uncle Wiggily and the Snow Drops 85 


fish and forget to come back to play tag with 
the toy piano, I’ll tell you next about Uncle 
Wiggily and the horse chestnut tree. 



STORY XIII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE HORSE CHESTNUT 

“Bang! Bango! Bunko! Bunk! Slam!” 

Something made a big noise on the front 
porch of the hollow stump bungalow, where, in 
the woods, lived Uncle Wiggily Longears, the 
rabbit gentleman. 

“My goodness!” cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy 
Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper. “I hope 
nothing has happened!” 

“Well, from what I heard I should say it is 
quite certain that SOMETHING has hap¬ 
pened,” spoke the bunny uncle, sort of twisting 
his ears very anxious like. 

“I only hope the chimney hasn’t turned a 
somersault, and that the roof is not trying to 
play tag with the back steps,” went on Miss 
Fuzzy Wuzzy, a bit scared like. 

“I’ll go see what it is,” offered Uncle Wig¬ 
gily, and as he went to the front door there, on 
the piazza, he saw Billie Wagtail, the little goat 
boy. 


86 


Uncle Wiggily and the Horse Chestnut 87 


“Oh, good morning, Uncle Wiggily/’ spoke 
Billie, politely. “Here’s a note for you. I just 
brought it.” 

“And did you bring all that noise with you?” 
Mr. Longears wanted to know. 

“Well, yes, I guess I did,” Billie said, sort of 
bashful like and shy as he wiggled his horns. 
“I was seeing how fast I could run, and I ran 
down hill and got going so lickity-split like that 
I couldn’t stop. I fell right up your front 
steps, r attle-te-bang!” 

“I should say it was rattle-te-bang!” laughed 
Uncle Wiggily. “But please don’t do it again, 
Billie.” 

“I won’t,” promised the goat boy. “Grandpa 
Goosey Gander gave me that note to leave for 
you on my way to the store for my mother. 
And now I must hurry on,” and Billie jumped 
off the porch and skipped along through the 
Woodland trees as happy as a huckleberry pie 
and a piece of cheese. 

“What was it all about?” asked Nurse Jane, 
when Uncle Wiggily came in. 

“Oh, just Billie Wagtail,” answered the 
bunny uncle. “He brought a note from 
Grandpa Goosey, who wants me to come over 
and see him. I’ll go. He has the epizootic, 



88 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


and can’t get out, so he wants some one to talk 
to and to play checkers with him.” 

Off through the woods went Uncle Wiggily 
and he was almost at Grandpa Goosey’s house 
when he heard some voices talking. One voice 
said: 

“Oh, dear! How thirsty I am!” 

“And so am I!” said another. 

“Well, children, I am sorry,” spoke a third 
voice, “but I cannot give you any water. I am 
thirsty myself, but we cannot drink until it 
rains, and it has not rained in a long, long 
time.” 

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” cried the 
other voices again. “How thirsty we are!” 

“That’s too bad,” thought Uncle Wiggily. 
“I would not wish even the bad fox to be thirsty. 
I must see if I can not be of some help.” 

So he peeked through the bushes and saw 
some trees. 

“Was it you who were talking about being 
thirsty?” asked the rabbit gentleman, curious 
like. 

“Yes,” answered the big voice. “I am a horse 
chestnut tree, and these are my children,” and 
the large tree waved some branches, like fingers, 
at some small trees growing under her. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Horse Chestnut 89 


“And they, I suppose, are pony chestnut 
trees, 3 ’ said Uncle Wiggily. 

“That’s what we are!” cried the little trees, 
“and we are very thirsty.” 

“Indeed they are,” said the mother tree. “You 
see we are not like you animals. We cannot 
walk to a spring or well to get a drink when 
we are thirsty. We have to stay, rooted in one 
place, and wait for the rain, or until some one 
waters us.” 

“Well, some one is going to water you right 
away!” cried Uncle Wiggily in his jolly voice. 
“I’ll bring you some water from the duck pond, 
which is near by.” 

Then, borrowing a pail from Mrs. Wibble- 
wobble, the duck lady, Uncle Wiggily poured 
water all around the dry earth, in which grew 
the horse chestnut tree and the little pony trees. 

“Oh! How fine that is!” cried the thirsty 
trees. “It is almost as nice as rain. You are 
very good, Uncle Wiggily,” said the mother 
tree, “and if ever we can do you a favor we 
will,” 

“Thank you,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, making 
a low bow with his tall silk hat. Then he went 
on to Grandpa Goosey’s where he visited with 
his epizootic friend and played checkers. 

On his way home, through the woods, Uncle 



90 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


Wiggily was unpleasantly surprised when, all 
of a sudden out from behind a stone jumped 
a bad bear. He wasn’t at all a good, nice bear 
like Beckie or Neddie Stubtail. 

“Bur-r-r-r-r!” growled the bear at Uncle 
Wiggily. “I guess I’ll scratch you.” 

“Oh, please don’t,” begged the bunny uncle. 

“Yes, I shall!” grumbled the bear. “And I’ll 
hug you, too!” 

“Oh, no! I’d rather you wouldn’t!” said the 
bunny uncle. For well he knew that a bear 
doesn’t hug for love. It’s more of a hard, rib¬ 
cracking squeeze than a hug. If ever a bear 
wants to hug you, just don’t you let him. Of 
course if daddy or mother wants to hug, why, 
that’s all right. 

“Yes, I’m going to scratch you and hug you,” 
went on the bad bear, “and after that — well, 
after that I guess I’ll take you off to my den.” 

“Oh, please don’t!” begged Uncle Wiggily, 
twinkling his nose and thinking that he might 
make the bear laugh. For if ever you can get 
a bear to laugh he won’t hurt you a bit. Just 
remember that. Tickle him, or do anything to 
get him to laugh. But this bear wouldn’t even 
smile. He just growled again and said: 

“Well, here I come, Uncle Wiggily, to hug 
you!” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Horse Chestnut 91 


“Oh, no you don’t!” all of a sudden cried a 
voice in the air. 

“Ha! Who says I don’t?” grumbled the bear, 
impolite like. 

“I do,” went on the voice. And the bear saw 
some trees waving their branches at him. 

“Pooh! I’m not afraid of you!” growled 
the bear, and he made a rush for the bunny. 
“I’m not afraid of trees.” 

“Not afraid of us, eh? Well, you’d better 
be!” said the mother tree. “I’m a strong horse 
chestnut and these are my strong little ponies. 
Come on, children, we won’t let the bear get 
Uncle Wiggily.” Then the strong horse chest¬ 
nut tree and the pony trees reached down with 
their powerful branches and, catching hold of 
the bear, they tossed him up in the air, far away 
over in the woods, at the same time pelting him 
with green, prickly horse chestnuts, and the 
bear came down ker-bunko in a bramble brier 
bush. 

“Oh, wow!” cried the bear, as he felt his soft 
and tender nose being scratched. “I’ll be good! 
I’ll be good!” 

And he was, for a little while, anyhow. So 
this shows you how a horse chestnut tree saved 
the bunny gentleman, and if the postman 
doesn’t stick a stamp on our cat’s nose so it can’t 



92 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


eat molasses cake when it goes to the puppy 
dog’s party, I’ll tell you next about Uncle 
Wiggily and the pine tree. 



STORY XIV 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PINE TREE 

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old 
gentleman rabbit, put on his tall silk bat, pol¬ 
ished his glasses with the tip of his tail, to make 
them shiny so he could see better through them, 
and then, taking his red, white and blue striped 
rheumatism crutch down off the mantel, he 
started out of his hollow stump bungalow one 
day. 

“Better take an umbrella, hadn’t you?” asked 
Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady 
housekeeper. “It looks as though we might have 
an April shower.” 

“An umbrella? Yes, I think I will take one,” 
spoke the bunny uncle, as he saw some dark 
clouds in the sky. “They look as though they 
might have rain in them.” 

“Are you going anywhere in particular?” 
asked the muskrat lady, as she tied her tail in 
a soft knot. 


93 


94 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“No, not special,” Uncle Wiggily answered. 
“May I have the pleasure of doing something 
for you?” he asked with a polite bow, like a 
little girl speaking a piece in school on Friday 
afternoon. 

“Well,” said Nurse Jane, “I have baked 
some apple dumplings with oranges inside, and 
I thought perhaps you might like to take one 
to Grandfather Goosey Gander to cheer him 
up. 5 ' 

“The very thing!” cried Uncle Wiggily, jolly¬ 
like. “I’ll do it, Nurse Jane.” 

So with an apple dumpling carefully wrapped 
up in a napkin and put in a basket, Uncle Wig¬ 
gily started off through the woods and over the 
fields to Grandpa Goosey’s house. 

“I wonder if I shall have an adventure to¬ 
day?” thought the rabbit gentleman as he 
waved his ears to and fro like the pendulum of 
a clock. “I think I would like one to give me 
an appetite for supper. I must watch for some¬ 
thing to happen.” 

He looked all around the woods, but all he 
could see were some trees. 

“I can’t have any adventures with them,” 
said the bunny uncle, “though the horse chestnut 
tree did help me the other day by tossing the 



Uncle Wiggily and the Pine Tree 95 


bad bear over into the briar bush. But these 
trees are not like that.” 

Still Uncle Wiggily was to have an adventure 
with one of the trees very soon. Just you wait, 
now, and you shall hear about it. 

Uncle Wiggily walked on a little farther and 
he heard a funny tapping noise in the woods. 

“Tap! Tap! Tap! Tappity-tap-tap!” it 
sounded. 

“My! Some one is knocking on a door try¬ 
ing to get in,” thought the bunny. “I wonder 
who it can be?” 

Just then he saw a big bird perched on the 
side of a pine tree, tapping with his bill. 

“Tap! Tap! Tap!” went the bird. 

“Excuse me,” said the bunny uncle, “but you 
are making a mistake. No one lives in that 
tree.” 

“Oh, thank you, Uncle Wiggily. I know 
that no one lives here,” said the bird. “But you 
see I am a woodpecker, and I am pecking holes 
in the tree to get some of the sweet juice, or 
sap. The sap is running in the trees now, for 
it is Spring. Later on I will tap holes in the 
bark to get at bugs and worms, when there is 
no more sap for me to eat.” 

And the woodpecker went on tapping, tap¬ 
ping, tapping. 



96 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“My! That is a funny way to get some¬ 
thing to eat,” said the bunny gentleman to him¬ 
self. He watched the bird until it flew away, 
and then Uncle Wiggily was about to hop on 
to Grandpa Goosey’s house when, all of a sud¬ 
den, before he could run away, out popped the 
bad old bear once more. 

“Ah, ha! We meet again, I see,” growled 
the bear. “I was not looking for you, Mr. 
Longears, but all the same I am glad to meet 
you, for I want to eat you.” 

“Well,” said Uncle Wiggily, sort of scratch¬ 
ing his pink, twinkling nose with his ear, sur¬ 
prised like. “I can’t exactly say I’m glad to 
see you , good Mr. Bear.” 

“No, I s’pose not,” agreed the fuzzy creature. 
“But you are mistaken. I am the Bad Mr. 
Bear, not the Good.” 

“Oh, excuse me,” said Uncle Wiggily. All 
the while he knew the bear was bad, but he 
hoped by calling him good, to make him so. 

“I’m very bad!” growled the bear, “and I’m 
going to take you off to my den with me. Come 
along!” 

“Oh, I don’t want to,” said the bunny uncle, 
shivering his tail. 

“But you must!” growled the bear. “Come 

on, now!” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Pine Tree 


97 


“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Will you 
let me go if I give you what’s in my basket?” 
he asked, and he held up the basket with the 
nice orange apple turnover in it. “Let me go 
if I give you this,” begged the bunny uncle. 

“Maybe I will, and maybe I won’t,” said the 
bear, cunning like. “Let me see what it is.” 

He took the basket from Uncle Wiggily, and 
looking in, said: 

“Ah, ha! An apple turnover-dumpling with 
oranges in it! I just love them! Ah, ha!” 

“Oh,” thought Uncle Wiggily. “I hope he 
eats it, for then maybe I can get away when he 
doesn’t notice me. I hope he eats it!” 

And the bear, leaning his back against the 
pine tree in which the woodpecker had been 
boring holes, began to take bites out of the 
apple dumpling which Nurse Jane had baked 
for Grandpa Goosey. 

“Now’s my chance to get away!” thought the 
bunny gentleman. But when he tried to hop 
softly off, as the bear was eating the sweet stuff, 
the bad creature saw him and cried: 

“Ah, ha! No you don’t! Come back here!” 
and with his claws he pulled Uncle Wiggily 
close to him again. 

Then the bunny uncle noticed that some 
sweet, sticky juice or gum, like that on fly 



98 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


paper, was running down the trunk of the tree 
from the holes the woodpecker had drilled in it. 

“Oh, if the bear only leans back hard enough 
and long enough against that sticky pine tree,” 
thought Mr. Longears, “he’ll be stuck fast by 
his furry hair and he can’t get me. I hope he 
sticks!” 

And that is just what happened. The bear 
enjoyed eating the apple dumpling so much 
that he leaned back harder and harder against 
the sticky tree. His fur stuck fast in the gum 
that ran out. Finally the bear ate the last 
crumb of the dumpling. 

“And now I’ll get you!” he cried to the bunny 
uncle; “I’ll get you!” 

But did the bear get Uncle Wiggily? He 
did not. The bear tried to jump toward the 
rabbit, but could not. He was stuck fast to 
the sticky pine tree and Uncle Wiggily could 
now run safely back to his hollow stump bunga¬ 
low to get another dumpling for Grandpa 
Goosey. 

So the bear had no rabbit, after all, and all 
he did was to stay stuck fast to the pine tree 
until a big fox came along and helped him to 
get loose, and the bear cried “Wouch!” because 
his fur was pulled. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Pine Tree 99 


So Uncle Wiggily was all right, you see, 
after all, and very thankful he was to the pine 
tree for holding fast to the bear. 

And in the next story, if our cat doesn’t go 
hunting for the poll parrot’s cracker in the gold 
fish bowl and get his whiskers all wet, I’ll tell 
you about Uncle Wiggily and the green rushes. 



STORY XV 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE GREEN RUSHES 

Once upon a time Uncle Wiggily Longears, 
the nice rabbit gentleman, was taking a walk 
in the woods, looking for an adventure, as he 
often did, when, as he happened to go past the 
hollow tree, where Billie and Johnnie Bushy- 
tail, the two squirrel boys lived, he saw them 
just poking their noses out of the front door, 
which was a knot-hole. 

“Hello, boys!” called Uncle Wiggily. “Why 
haven’t you gone to school today? It is time, 
I’m sure.” 

“Oh, we don’t have to go today,” answered 
Billie, as he looked at his tail to see if any 
chestnut burrs were sticking in it. But none 
was, I am glad to say. 

“Don’t have to go to school? Why not?” 
Uncle Wiggily wanted to know. “This isn’t 
Saturday, is it?” 

“No,” spoke Johnnie. “But you see, Sister 
Sallie, our little squirrel sister, has the measles, 
100 


Uncle Wiggily and the Green Rushes 101 


and we can’t go to school until she gets over 
them.” 

“And we don’t know what to do to have 
some fun,” went on Billie, “for lots of the ani¬ 
mal children are home from school with the 
measles, and they can’t be out to play with us. 
We’ve had the measles, so we can’t get them 
the second time, but the animal boys and girls, 
who haven’t broken out, don’t want us'to come 
and see them for fear we’ll bring the red spots 
to them.” 

“I see,” said Uncle Wiggily, laughing until 
his pink nose twinkled like a jelly roll. “So 
you can’t have any fun? Well, suppose you 
come with me for a walk in the woods.” 

“Fine!” cried Billie and Johnnie and soon 
they were walking in the woods with the rabbit 
gentleman. They had not gone very far be¬ 
fore, all of a sudden, they came to a place where 
a mud turtle gentleman had fallen on his back, 
and he could not turn over, right-side up again. 
He tried and tried, but he could not right 
himself. 

“Oh, that is too bad!” cried Uncle Wiggily, 
when he saw what had happened. “I must help 
him to get right-side up again,” which he did. 

“Oh, thank you for putting me on my legs 
once more, Uncle Wiggily,” said the mud tur- 



102 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


tie. “I would like to do you a favor for help¬ 
ing me, but all I have to give you are these,” 
and in one claw he picked some green stalks 
growing near him, and handed them to the 
bunny uncle, afterward crawling away. 

“Pooh! Those are no good!” cried Billie, the 
boy squirrel. 

“I should say not!” laughed Johnnie. “They 
are only green rushes that grow all about in 
the woods, and we could give Uncle Wiggily 
all he wanted.” 

“Hush, boys! Don’t talk that way,” said the 
bunny uncle. “The mud turtle tried to do the 
best he could for me, and I am sure the green 
rushes are very nice. I’ll take them with me. 
I may find use for them.” 

Billie and Johnnie wanted to laugh, for they 
thought green rushes were of no use at all. But 
Uncle Wiggily said to the squirrel boys: 

“Billie and Johnnie, though green rushes, 
which grow in the woods and swamps are very 
common, still they are a wonderful plant. See 
how smooth they are when you rub them up 
and down. But if you rub them sideways they 
are as rough as a stiff brush or a nutmeg 
grater.” 

Well, Billie and Johnnie thought more of the 
rushes after that, but, as they walked on with 



Uncle Wiggily and the Green Rushes 108 


Uncle Wiggily, when he had put them in his 
pocket, they could think of no way in which he 
could use them. 

In a little while they came to where Mother 
Goose lived, and the dear old lady herself was 
out in front of her house, looking up and down 
the woodland path, anxious like. 

“What is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily. 
“Are you looking for some of your lost ones—* 
Little Bopeep or Tommy Tucker, who sings 
for his supper?” 

“Well, no, not exactly,” answered Mother 
Goose. “I sent Simple Simon to the store to 
get me a scrubbing brush, so I could clean the 
kitchen floor. But he hasn’t come back, and 
I am afraid he has gone fishing in his mother’s 
pail, to try to catch a whale. Oh, dear! My 
kitchen is so dirty that it needs scrubbing right 
away. But I cannot do it without a scrubbing 
brush.” 

“Ha! Say no more!” cried Uncle Wiggily 
in his jolly voice. “I have no scrubbing brush, 
but I have a lot of green rushes the mud turtle 
gave me for turning him right-side up. The 
rushes are as rough as a scrubbing brush, and 
will do just as nicely to clean your kitchen.” 

“Oh, thank you! I’m sure they will,” said 
Mother Goose. So she took the green rushes 



104 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


from Uncle Wiggily and by using them with 
soap and water soon her kitchen floor was 
scrubbed as clean as an eggshell, for the green, 
rough stems scraped off all the dirt. 

Then Mother Goose thanked Uncle Wiggily 
very much, and Billie and Johnnie sort of 
looked at one another with blinking eyes, for 
they saw that green rushes are of some use in 
this world after all. 

And if the strawberry jam doesn’t go to the 
moving pictures with the bread and butter and 
forget to come home for supper, I’ll tell you 
next about Uncle Wiggily and the bee tree. 



STORY XVI 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BEE TREE 

“Well, you’re off again, I see!” spoke Nurse 
Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady house¬ 
keeper, one morning, as she saw Uncle Wiggily 
Longears, the rabbit gentleman, starting away 
from his hollow stump bungalow. He was 
limping on his red, white and blue striped bar¬ 
ber pole rheumatism crutch, that Miss Fuzzy 
Wuzzy had gnawed for him out of a cornstalk. 
“Off again!” she cried. 

“Yes, off again,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I 
must have my adventure, you know.” 

“I hope it will be a pleasant one today,” went 
on Nurse Jane. 

“So do I,” said Uncle Wiggily, and away he 
went hopping over the fields and through the 
woods. He had not gone very far before he 
heard a queer buzzing sound, and a sort of 
splashing in the water and a tiny voice cried: 

“Help! Help! Save me! I am drowning!” 

“My goodness me sakes alive and some horse 
radish lollypops!” cried the bunny uncle. “Some 
105 


106 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


one drowning? I don’t see any water around 
here, though I do hear some splashing. Who 
are you?” he cried. “And where are you, so that 
I may save you?” 

“Here I am, right down by your foot!” was 
the answer. “I am a honey bee, and I have 
fallen into this Jack-in-the pulpit flower, which 
is full of water. Please get me out!” 

“To be sure I will!” cried Mr. Longears, and 
then, stooping down he carefully lifted the poor 
bee out of the water in the Jack-in-the-pulpit. 

The Jack is a plant that looks like a little 
pitcher and it holds water. In the middle is a 
green stem, that is called Jack, because he looks 
like a minister preaching in the pulpit. The 
Jack happened to be out when the bee fell in 
the water that had rained in the plant-pitcher, 
or Jack himself would have saved the honey 
chap. But Uncle Wiggily did it just as well. 

“Oh, thank you so much for not letting me 
drown,” said the bee, as she dried her wings in 
the sun on a big green leaf. “I was on my way 
to the hive tree with a load of honey when I 
stopped for a drink. But I leaned over too far 
and fell in. I can not thank you enough!” 

“Oh, once is enough!” cried Uncle Wiggily 
in his most jolly voice. “But did I understand 
you to say you lived in a hive-tree?” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Bee Tree 107 


“Yes, a lot of us bees have our hive in a hol¬ 
low tree in the woods, not far away. It is there 
we store the honey we gather from Summer 
flowers, so we will have something to eat in the 
Winter when there are no blossoms. Would you 
like to see the bee tree?” 

“Indeed, I would,” Uncle Wiggily said. 

“Follow me, then,” buzzed the bee. “I will 
fly on ahead, very slowly, and you can follow me 
through the woods.” 

Uncle Wiggily did so, and soon he heard a 
great buzzing sound, and he saw hundreds of 
bees flying in and out of a hollow tree. At first 
some of the bees were going to sting the bunny 
uncle, but his little friend cried: 

“Hold on, sisters! Don’t sting this rabbit 
gentleman. He is Uncle Wiggily and he saved 
me from being drowned.” 

So the bees did not sting the bunny uncle, but, 
instead, gave him a lot of honey, in a little box 
made of birch bark, which he took home to Nurse 
Jane. 

“Oh, I had the sweetest adventure!” he said 
to her, and he told her about the bee tree and 
the honey, which he and the muskrat lady ate on 
their carrot cake for dinner. 

It was about a week after this, and Uncle 
Wiggily was once more in the woods, looking for 
an adventure, when, all at once a big bear 



108 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


jumped out from behind a tree and grabbed 
him. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Why 
did you do that ? Why have you caught me, Mr. 
Bear?” 

“Because I am going to carry you off to my 
den,” answered the bear. “I am hungry, and I 
have been looking for something to eat. You 
came along just in time. Come on!” 

The bear was leading Uncle Wiggily away 
when the bunny uncle happened to think of 
something, and it was this—that bears are very 
fond of sweet things. 

“Would you not rather eat some honey than 
me?” Uncle Wiggily asked of the bear. 

“Much rather,” answered the shaggy crea¬ 
ture, “but where is the honey?” he asked, cau¬ 
tious like and foxy. 

“Come with me and I will show you where it 
is,” went on the bunny uncle, for he felt sure that 
his friends the bees, would give the bear honey 
so the bad animal would let the rabbit gentleman 
go. 

Uncle Wiggily led the way through the wood 
to the bee tree, the bear keeping hold of him all 
the while. Pretty soon a loud buzzing was 
heard, and wfyen they came to where the honey 
was stored in the hollow tree, all of a sudden out 
flew hundreds of bees, and they stung the bear 



Uncle Wiggily and the Bee Tree 109 


so hard all over, especially on his soft and tender 
nose, that the bear cried: 

“Wow! Wouch! Oh, dear!” and, letting go 
of the rabbit, ran away to jump in the ice water 
to cool off. 

But the bees did not sting Uncle Wiggily, for 
they liked him, and he thanked them for driving 
away the bear. So everything came out all 
right, you see, and if the foot-stool gets up to the 
head of the class and writes its name on the 
blackboard, with pink chalk, I’ll tell you next 
about Uncle Wiggily and the dogwood tree. 



STORY XYII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE DOGWOOD 

“Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?” 
asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat 
lady housekeeper, as the nice old rabbit gentle¬ 
man started out from his hollow stump bunga¬ 
low one afternoon. 

“Oh, just for a walk in the woods,” he an¬ 
swered. “Neddie Stubtail, the little bear boy, 
told me last night that there were many adven¬ 
tures in the forest, and I want to see if I can 
find one.” 

“My goodness! You seem very fond of ad¬ 
ventures!” said Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. 

“I am,” went on Uncle Wiggily, with a smile 
that made his pink nose twinkle and his whis¬ 
kers sort of chase themselves around the back of 
his neck, as though they were playing tag with 
his collar button. “I just love to have adven¬ 
tures.” 

“Well, while you are out walking among the 
trees would you mind doing me a favor?” asked 
Nurse Jane. 


no 























Uncle Wiggily and the Dogwood 111 


“I wouldn’t mind in the least,” spoke the 
bunny uncle. “What would you like me to do?” 

“Just leave this thimble at Mrs. Bow Wow’s 
house. I borrowed the dog lady’s thimble to use 
when I couldn’t find mine, but now that I have 
my own back again I’ll return hers.” 

“Where was yours?” Uncle Wiggily wanted 
to know. 

“Jimmie Caw-Caw, the crow boy, had picked 
it up to hide under the pump,” answered Nurse 
Jane. “Crows, you know, like to pick up bright 
and shining things.” 

“Yes, I remember,” said Uncle Wiggily. 
“Very well, I’ll give Mrs. Bow Wow her 
thimble,” and off the old gentleman rabbit 
started, limping along on his red, white and blue 
striped rheumatism crutch, that Nurse Jane 
Fuzzy Wuzzy had gnawed for him out of a 
bean-pole. Excuse me, I mean corn stalk. 

When Uncle Wiggily came to the place where 
Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the little puppy 
dog boys lived, he saw Mrs. Bow Wow, the 
dog lady, out in front of the kennel house look¬ 
ing up and down the path that led through the 
woods. 

“Were you looking for me?” asked Uncle 
Wiggily, making a low and polite bow with his 
tall silk hat. 

“Looking for you? Why, no, not specially,” 



112 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


said Mrs. Bow Wow, “though I am always glad 
to see you.” 

“I thought perhaps you might be looking for 
your thimble,” went on the bunny uncle. “Nurse 
Jane has sent it back to you.” 

“Oh, thank you!” said the mother of the 
puppy dog boys. “I’m glad to get my thimble 
back, but I was really looking for Peetie and 
Jackie.” 

“You don’t mean to say they have run away, 
do you?” asked Uncle Wiggily, in surprise. 

“No, not exactly run away. But they have 
not come home from school, though the lady 
mouse, who teaches in the hollow stump, must 
have let the animal children out long ago.” 

“She did,” Uncle Wiggily said. “I came past 
the hollow stump school on my way here, and 
every one was gone.” 

“Then where can Jackie and Peetie be keep¬ 
ing themselves?” asked Mrs. Bow Wow. “Oh, 
I’m so worried about them!” 

“Don’t be worried or frightened,” said Uncle 
Wiggily, kindly. “I’ll go look for them for 
you.” 

“Oh, if you will I’ll be so glad!” cried Mrs. 
Bow Wow. “And if you find them please tell 
them to come home at once.” 

“I will,” promised the bunny uncle. 

Giving the dog lady her thimble, Uncle Wig- 



Uncle Wiggily and the Dogwood 113 


gily set off through the woods to look for Jackie 
and Peetie Bow Wow. On every side of the 
woodland path he peered, under trees and bushes 
and around the corners of moss-covered rocks 
and big stumps. 

But no little puppy dog chaps could he find. 

All at once, as Mr. Longears was going past 
an old log he heard a rustling in the bushes, and 
a voice said: 

'‘Well, we nearly caught them, didn’t we?” 

“We surely did,” said another voice. “And I 
think if we race after them once more we’ll cer¬ 
tainly have them. Let’s rest here a bit, and then 
chase those puppy dogs some more. That Jackie 
is a good runner.” 

“I think Peetie is better,” said the other voice. 
“Anyhow, they both got away from us.” 

“Ha! This must be Peetie and Jackie Bow 
Wow they are talking about,” said Uncle Wig¬ 
gily to himself. “This sounds like trouble. So 
the puppy dogs were chased, were they? I must 
see by whom.” 

He peeked through the bushes, and there he 
saw two big, bad foxes, whose tongues were 
hanging out over their white teeth, for the foxes 
had run far and they were tired. 

“I see how it is,” Uncle Wiggily thought. 
“The foxes chased the little puppy dogs as they 
were coming from school and Jackie and Peetie 



114 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


have run somewhere and hidden. I must find 
them.” 

Just then one of the foxes cried: 

“Come on. Now we’ll chase after those pup¬ 
pies, and get them. Come on!” 

“Ha! I must go, too!” thought Uncle Wig¬ 
gily. “Maybe I can scare away the foxes, and 
save Jackie and Peetie.” 

So the foxes ran and Uncle Wiggily also ran, 
and pretty soon the rabbit gentleman came to a 
place in the woods where grew a tree with big 
white blossoms on it, and in the center the blos¬ 
soms were colored a dark red. 

“Ha! There are the puppy boys under that 
tree!” cried one fox, and, surely enough, there, 
right under the tree, Jackie and Peetie were 
crouched, trembling and much frightened. 

“We’ll get them!” cried the other fox. 
“Come on!” 

And then, all of a sudden, as the foxes leaped 
toward the poor little puppy dog boys, that tree 
began to bark and growl and it cried out loud: 

“Get away from here, you bad foxes! Leave 
Jackie and Peetie alone! Wow! Bow-wow! 
Gurr-r-r-r!” and the tree barked and roared so 
like a lion that the foxes were frightened and 
were glad enough to run away, taking their tails 
with them. Then Jackie and Peetie came safely 



Uncle Wiggily and the Dogwood 115 


out, and thanked the tree for taking care of 
them. 

“Oh, you are welcome,” said the tree. “I am 
the dogwood tree, you know, so why should I 
not bark and growl to scare foxes, and take care 
of you little puppy chaps? Come to me again 
whenever any bad foxes chase you.” And Peetie 
and Jackie said they would. 

So Uncle Wiggily, after also thanking the 
tree, took the doggie boys home, and they told 
him how the foxes had chased them soon after 
they came from school, so they had to run. 

But everything came out all right, you see, 
and if the black cat doesn’t dip his tail in the ink, 
and make chalk marks all over the piano, I’ll tell 
you next about Uncle Wiggily and the hazel 
nuts. 



STORY XVIII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE HAZEL NUTS 

“ Going out again, Uncle Wiggily?” asked 
Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, one morning, as she 
saw the rabbit gentleman taking his red-white- 
and blue-striped rheumatism crutch down off 
the clock shelf. 

“Well, yes, Janie, I did think of going out for 
a little stroll in the forest,” answered the bunny 
uncle, talking like a phonograph. What he 
meant was that he was going for a walk in the 
woods, but he thought he’d be polite about it, 
and stylish, just for once. 

“Don’t forget your umbrella,” went on Nurse 
Jane. “It looks to me very much as though 
there would be a storm.” 

“I think you’re right,” Uncle Wiggily said. 
“Our April showers are not yet over. I shall 
take my umbrella.” 

So, with his umbrella, and the rheumatism 
crutch which Nurse Jane had gnawed for him 
out of a cornstalk, off started the bunny uncle, 
116 


Uncle Wiggily and the Hazel Nuts 117 


hopping along over the fields and through the 
woods. 

Pretty soon Uncle Wiggily met Johnnie 
Bushytail, the squirrel boy. 

“Where are you going, Johnnie?” asked the 
rabbit gentleman. “Are you here in the woods, 
looking for an adventure? That’s what I’m 
doing.” 

“No, Uncle Wiggily,” answered the squirrel 
boy. “I’m not looking for an adventure. I’m 
looking for hazel nuts.” 

“Hazel nuts?” cried the bunny uncle in sur¬ 
prise. 

“Yes,” went on Johnnie. “You know they’re 
something like chestnuts, only without the 
prickly burrs, and they’re very good to eat. 
They grow on bushes, instead of trees. I’m look¬ 
ing for some to eat. They are nice, brown, shiny 
nuts.” 

“Good!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “We’ll 
go together looking for hazel nuts, and per¬ 
haps we may also find an adventure. I’ll take 
the adventure and you can take the hazel nuts.” 

“All right!” laughed Johnnie, and off they 
started. 

On and over the fields and through the woods 
went the bunny uncle and Johnnie, until, just as 
they were close to the place where some extra 
early new kind of Spring hazel nuts grew on 



118 Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 

bushes, there was a noise behind a big black 
stump—and suddenly out pounced a bear! 

“Oh, hello, Neddie Stubtail!” called Johnnie. 
And he was just going up and shake paws when 
Uncle Wiggily cried: 

“Look out, Johnnie! Wait a minute! That 
isn’t your friend Neddie!” 

“Isn’t it?” asked Johnnie, surprised-like, and 
he drew back. 

“No, it’s a bad old bear—not our nice Neddie, 
at all! And I think he is going to chase us! Get 
ready to run!” 

So Johnnie Bushytail and Uncle Wiggily got 
ready to run. And it was a good thing they did, 
for just then the bear gave a growl, like a lolly- 
pop when it falls off the stick, and the bear said: 

“Ah, ha! And oh, ho! A rabbit and a squir¬ 
rel ! Fine for me! Tag—your it!” he cried, and 
he made a jump for Uncle Wiggily and Johnnie. 

But do you s’pose the bunny uncle and the 
squirrel boy stayed there to be caught? Indeed, 
they did not! 

“Over this way! Quick!” cried Johnnie. 
“Here is a hazel nut bush, Uncle Wiggily. We 
can hide under that and the bear can’t get us!” 

“Good!” said the bunny uncle. And he and 
Johnnie quickly ran and hid under the hazel nut 
bush, which was nearby. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Hazel Nuts 119 


The bear looked all around as he heard Uncle 
Wiggily and Johnnie running away, and when 
he saw where they had gone he laughed until his 
whiskers twinkled, almost like the rabbit gentle¬ 
man’s pink nose, and then the bear said: 

“Ha, ha! and Ho, ho! So you thought you 
could get away from me that way, did you? 
Well, you can’t. I can see you hiding under that 
bush almost as plainly as I can see the sun shin¬ 
ing. Here I come after you.” 

“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “What 
shall we do, Johnnie? I don’t want the bear to 
get you or me.” 

“And I don’t either,” spoke the little squirrel 
boy. 

“I wonder if I could scare him away with my 
umbrella, Johnnie?” went on Uncle Wiggily. 
“I might if I could make believe it was a gun. 
Have you any talcum powder to shoot?” 

“No,” said Johnnie, sadly, “I have not, I am 
sorry to say.” 

“Have you any bullets?” asked the bunny 
uncle. 

“No bullets, either,” answered Johnnie, more 
sadly. 

“Then I don’t see anything for us to do but 
let the bear get us,” sorrowfully said Mr. Long- 
ears. “Here he comes, Johnnie.” 

“But he sha’n’t get us!” quickly cried the squir- 



120 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


rel boy, as the bear made a jump for the bush 
under which the bunny and Johnnie were hid¬ 
ing. “He sha’n’t get us!” 

“Why not?” asked Uncle Wiggily. 

“Because,” said Johnnie, “I have just thought 
of something. You asked me for bullets a while 
ago. I have none, but the hazel nut bush has. 
Come, good Mr. Hazel Bush, will you save us 
from the bear?” asked Johnnie. 

“Bight gladly will I do that,” the kind bush 
said. 

“Then, when he comes for us!” cried Johnnie, 
“just rattle down, all over on him, all the hard 
nuts you can let fall. They will hit him on his 
ears, and on his soft and tender nose, and that 
will make him run away and leave us alone.” 

“Good!” whispered the hazel nut bush, rus¬ 
tling its leaves. “But what about you and Uncle 
Wiggily? If I rattle the nuts on the bear they 
will also fall on you two, as long as you are hid¬ 
ing under me.” 

“Have no fear of that!” said the bunny uncle. 
“I have my umbrella, and I will raise that and 
keep off the falling nuts.” 

Then the bear, with a growl, made a dash to 
get Uncle Wiggily and Johnnie. But the hazel 
bush shivered and shook himself and “Rattle-te- 
bang! Bung-bung! Bang!” down came the 
hazel nuts all over the bear. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Hazel Nuts 121 


“Oh, wow!” he cried, as they hit him on his 
soft and tender nose. “Oh, wow! I guess I’d 
better run away. It’s hailing!” 

And he did run. And because of Uncle Wig- 
gily’s umbrella held over his head, the nuts did 
not hurt him or Johnnie at all. And when the 
bear had run far away the squirrel boy gathered 
all the nuts he wanted, and he and Uncle Wig¬ 
gily went safely home. And the bear’s nose was 
sore for a week. 

So if the hickory nut cake doesn’t try to sit in 
the same seat with the apple pie and get all 
squeezed like a lemon pudding, I’ll tell you next 
about Uncle Wiggily and Susie’s dress. 



STORY XIX 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND SUSXE^S DRESS 

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gen¬ 
tleman rabbit, was reading the paper in his hol¬ 
low stump bungalow, in the woods, while Nurse 
Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady house¬ 
keeper, was out in the kitchen washing the din¬ 
ner dishes one afternoon. 

All of a sudden Uncle Wiggily fell asleep be¬ 
cause he was reading a bed-time story in the 
paper, and while he slept he heard a noise at the 
front door, which sounded like: 

“Rat-a-tat-tat! Rat-a-tat-tat!” 

“My goodness!” suddenly exclaimed Uncle 
Wiggily, awakening out of his sleep. “That 
sounds like the forest woodpecker bird making 
holes in a tree.” 

“No, it isn’t that,” spoke Nurse Jane. “It’s 
some one tapping at our front door. I can’t an¬ 
swer because my paws are all covered with 
soapy-suds dishwater.” 

“Oh, I’ll go,” said Uncle Wiggily, and laying 
aside the paper over which he had fallen asleep, 
122 


Uncle Wiggily and Susie’s Dress 123 


he opened the door. On the porch stood Susie 
Littletail, the rabbit girl. 

“Why, hello Susie!” exclaimed the bunny 
uncle. “Where are you going with your nice 
new dress?” for Susie did have on a fine new 
waist and skirt, or maybe it was made in one 
piece for all I know. And her new dress had on 
it ruffles and thing-a-ma-bobs and curley-cues 
and insertions and Georgette crepe and all sorts 
of things like that. 

“Where are you going, Susie?” asked Uncle 
Wiggily. 

“I am going to a party,” answered the little 
rabbit girl. “Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble, the 
duck girls, are going to have a party, and they 
asked me to come. So I came for you.” 

“But I’m not going to the party!” exclaimed 
Uncle Wiggily. “I haven’t been invited.” 

“That doesn’t make any difference,” spoke 
Susie with a laugh. “You know they’ll be glad 
to see you, anyhow. And I know Lulu meant 
to ask you, only she must have forgotten about 
it, because there is so much to do when you have 
a party.” 

“I know there is,” Uncle Wiggily said, “and 
I don’t blame Lulu and Alice a bit for not ask¬ 
ing me. Anyhow I couldn’t go, for I promised 
to come over this afternoon and play checkers 
with Grandfather Goosey Gander.” 



124 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“Oh, but won’t you walk with me to the 
party?” asked Susie, sort of teasing like. “I’m 
afraid to go through the woods alone, because 
Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, said you 
and he met a bear there yesterday.” 

“We did!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “But the 
hazel bush drove him away by showering nuts on 
his nose.” 

“Well, I might not be so lucky as to have a 
hazelnut bush to help me,” spoke Susie. “So 
I’d be very glad if you would walk through the 
woods with me. You can scare away the bear 
if we meet him.” 

“How?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “With my 
red, white and blue crutch or my umbrella?” 

“With this popgun, which shoots toothpow- 
der,” said Susie. “It belongs to Sammie, my 
brother, but he let me take it. We’ll bring the 
popgun with us, Uncle Wiggily, and scare the 
bear.” 

“All right,” said the bunny uncle. “That’s 
what we’ll do. I’ll go as far as the Wibblewob- 
ble duck house with you and leave you there at 
the party.” 

This made Susie very glad and happy, and 
soon she and Uncle Wiggily were going through 
the woods together. Susie’s new dress was very 
fine and she kept looking at it as she hopped 
.along. 



Uncle Wiggily and Susie’s Dress 125 


All of a sudden, as the little rabbit girl and 
the bunny uncle were going along through the 
woods, they came to a mud puddle. 

“Look out, now!” said Uncle Wiggily. 
“Don’t fall in that, Susie.” 

“I won’t,” said the little rabbit girl. “I can 
easily jump across it.” 

But when she tried to, alas! Likewise unhap¬ 
piness. Her hind paws slipped and into the mud 
puddle she fell with her new dress. “Splash!” 
she went. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Susie. 

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. 

“Look at my nice, new dress,” went on Susie. 
“It isn’t at all nice and new now. It’s all mud 
and water and all splashed up, and—oh, dear! 
Isn’t it too bad!” 

“Yes, besides two it is even six, seven and 
eight bad,” said Uncle Wiggily sadly. “Oh, 
dear!” 

“I can’t go to the Wibblewobble party this 
way,” cried Susie. “I’ll have to go back home 
to get another dress, and it won’t be my new one 
—and oh, dear!” 

“Perhaps I can wipe off the mud with some 
leaves and moss,” Uncle Wiggily spoke. “I’ll 
try.” 

But the more he rubbed at the mud spots on 
Susie’s dress the worse they looked. 



126 


Uncle Wiggily in the woods 


“Oh, you can’t do it. Uncle Wiggily!” sighed 
the little rabbit girl. 

“No, I don’t believe I can,” Uncle Wiggily 
admitted, sadly-like and sorry. 

“Oh, dear!” cried Susie. “Whatever shall I 
do? I can’t go to a party looking like this! I 
just must have a new dress.” 

Uncle Wiggily thought for a minute. Then, 
through the woods, he spied a tree with white, 
shiny hark on, just like satin. 

“Ha! I know what to do!” he cried. “That 
is a white birch tree. Indians make boats of the 
bark, and from it I can also make a new dress 
for you, Susie. Or, at least, a sort of dress, or 
apron, to go over the dress you have on, and so 
cover the mud spots.” 

“Please do!” begged Susie. 

“I will!” promised Uncle Wiggily, and he 
did. 

He stripped off some bark from the birch 
tree and he sewed the pieces together with rib¬ 
bon grass, and some needles from the pine tree. 
And when Susie put on the bark dress over her 
party one, not a mud spot showed! 

“Oh, that’s fine, Uncle Wiggily!” she cried. 
“Now I can go to the Wibblewobbles!” 

And so she went, and the bad bear never came 
out to so much as growl, nor did the fox, so the 
popgun was not needed. And all the girls at 



Uncle Wiggily and Susie’s Dress 127 


the party thought Susie’s dress that Uncle Wig¬ 
gily had made was just fine. 

So if the rain drop doesn’t fall out of bed, 'and 
stub its toe on the rocking chair, which might 
make it so lame that it couldn’t dance, I’ll tell 
you next about Uncle Wiggily and Tommie’s 
kite. 



STORY XX 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND TOMMIE^S KITE 

“Uncle Wiggily, have you anything special 
to do today?” asked Tommie Kat, the little kit¬ 
ten boy, one morning as he knocked on the door 
of the hollow stump bungalow, where Mr. Long- 
ears, the rabbit gentleman, lived. 

“Anything special to do? Why, no, I guess 
not,” answered the bunny uncle. “I just have 
to go walking to look for an adventure to happen 
to me, and then—” 

“Didn’t you promise to go to the five and ten 
cent store for me, and buy me a pair of diamond 
earrings?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, 
the muskrat lady housekeeper. 

“Oh, so I did!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I had 
forgotten about that. But I’ll go. What was 
it you wanted of me?” he asked Tommie Kat, 
who was making a fishpole of his tail by stand¬ 
ing it straight up in the air. 

“Oh, I wanted you to come and help me build 
a kite, and then come with me and fly it,” said 
128 









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Uncle Wiggily and Tommie’s Kite 129 


the kitten boy. “Could you do that, Uncle 
Wiggily?” 

“Well, perhaps I could,” said the bunny 
uncle. “I will first go to the store and get Nurse 
Jane’s diamond earrings. Then, on the way 
back, I’ll stop and help you with your kite. And 
after that is done I’ll go along and see if I can 
find an adventure.” 

“That will be fun!” cried Tommie. “I have 
everything all ready to make the kite—paper, 
sticks, paste and string. We’ll make a big one 
and fly it away up in the air.” 

So off through the woods started Uncle Wig¬ 
gily and Tommie to the five and ten cent store. 
There they bought the diamond earrings for 
Nurse Jane, who wanted to wear them to a 
party Mrs. Cluck-Cluck, the hen lady, was 
going to have next week. 

“And now to make the kite!” cried Tommie, 
as he and Uncle Wiggily reached the house 
where the Kat family lived. 

The bunny uncle and the little kitten boy cut 
out some red paper in the shape of a kite. Then 
they pasted it on the crossed sticks, which were 
tied together with string. 

“The kite is almost done,” said Uncle Wig¬ 
gily, as he held it up. “And can you tell me, 
Tommie, why your kite is like Buddy, the 
guinea pig boy?” 



130 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“Can I tell you why my kite is like Buddy, 
the guinea pig boy?” repeated Tommie, like a 
man in a minstrel show. “No, Uncle Wiggily, 
I can not. Why is my kite like Buddy, the 
guinea pig boy?” 

“Because,” laughed the old rabbit gentleman, 
“this kite has no tail and neither has Buddy.” 

“Ha, ha!” exclaimed Tommie. “That’s 
right!” 

For guinea pigs have no tails, you know, 
though if you ask me why I can’t tell you. Some 
kites do have tails, though, and others do not. 

Anyhow, Tommie’s kite, without a tail, was 
soon finished, and then he and Uncle Wiggily 
went to a clear, open place in the fields, near the 
woods, to fly it. 

There was a good wind blowing, and when 
Uncle Wiggily raised the kite up off the ground, 
Tommie ran, holding the string that was fast to 
the kite and up and up and up it went in the air. 
Soon it was sailing quite near the clouds, almost 
like Uncle Wiggily’s airship, only, of course, no 
one rode on the kite. 

“Have you any more string, Uncle Wiggily?” 
asked the kitten boy, after a bit. 

“String, Tommie? What for?” 

“Well, I want to make my kite string longer 
so it will go up higher. But if you have none I’ll 



Uncle Wiggily and Tommie’s Kite 131 


run home ana get some myself. Will you hold 
the kite while I’m gone?” 

“To be sure I will,” said Uncle Wiggily. So 
he took hold of the string of Tommie’s kite, 
which was now quite high in the air. And, sit¬ 
ting down on the ground, Uncle Wiggily held 
the kite from running away while Tommie went 
for more string. 

It was a nice, warm, summer day, and so 
pleasant in the woods, with the little flies buz¬ 
zing about, that, before he knew it Uncle Wig¬ 
gily had fallen asleep. His pink nose stopped 
twinkling, his ears folded themselves down like 
a slice of bread and jam, and Uncle Wiggily’s 
eyes closed. 

All of a sudden he was awakened by feeling 
himself being pulled. At first he thought it was 
the skillery-scalery alligator, or the bad fox try¬ 
ing to drag him off to his den, and Uncle Wig¬ 
gily, opening his eyes, cried: 

“Here! Stop that if you please! Don’t pull 
me so!” 

But when he looked around he could see no 
one, and then he knew it was Tommie’s kite, fly¬ 
ing up in the air, that was doing the pulling. 

The wind was blowing hard now, and as Uncle 
Wiggily had the kite string wound around his 
paws, of course he was pulled almost off his 
feet. 



132 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“Ha! That kite is a great puller!” said the 
bunny uncle. “I must look out or it might pull 
me up to the clouds. I had better fasten the 
string to this old stump. The kite can’t pull that 
up.” 

So the rabbit gentleman fastened the kite cord 
to the stout old stump, winding it around two or 
three times, and he kept the loose end of the 
string in his paw. 

Uncle Wiggily was just going to sleep again, 
and he was wondering why it took Tommie so 
long to find more string for the kite, when, all of 
a sudden, there was a rustling in the bushes, and 
out jumped the bad old babboon, who had, once 
before, made trouble for the bunny uncle. 

“Ah, ha!” jabbered the babboon. “This time 
I have caught you. You can’t get away from 
me now. I am going to take you off to my den.” 

“Oh, please don’t!” begged Uncle Wiggily. 

“Yes, I shall, too!” blabbered the babboon. 
“Off to my den you shall go—you shall go—you 
shall go. Off to my den. Oh, hold on!” cried 
the bad creature. “That isn’t the song I wanted 
to sing. That’s the London Bridge song. I 
want the one about the dinner bell is ringing in 
the bread box this fine day. And the dinner bell 
is ringing for to take you far away, Uncle 
Wiggily.” 



Uncle Wiggily and Tommie’s Kite 133 


“Ah, then I had better go to my dinner,” said 
the bunny uncle, sadly. 

“No! You will go with me!” cried the bab- 
boon. “Come along now. I’m going to take 
you away.” 

“Well, if I must go, I suppose I must,” Uncle 
Wiggily said, looking at the kite string, which 
was pulling at the stump very hard now. “But 
before you take me away would you mind pull¬ 
ing down Tommie’s kite?” asked the bunny 
uncle. “I’ll leave it for him.” 

“Yes, I’ll pull the kite down,” said the bab- 
boon. 

“Maybe you will,” thought Uncle Wiggily, 
laughing to himself. “And maybe you won’t.” 

The bad babboon monkey chap unwound the 
string from the stump, but no sooner had he 
started to pull in the kite than there came a very 
strong puff of wind. 

Up, up and up into the air blew the kite and, 
as the string was tangled around the babboon’s 
paws, it took him up with it, and though he cried 
out: “Stop! Stop! Stop!” the kite could not 
stop, nor the babboon either. 

“Well, I guess you won’t bother me any 
more,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he looked at the 
babboon, who was only a speck in the sky now; 
a very little speck, being carried away by the 
kite. 



134 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


And the babboon did not come back to bother 
Uncle Wiggily, at least for a long time. Tom¬ 
mie felt badly when he found his kite blown 
away. But he was glad Uncle Wiggily had been 
saved, and he and the bunny uncle soon made a 
new kite, better than the first. They had lots 
of fun flying it. 

And in the story after this, if the chocolate 
pudding doesn’t hide in the coal bin, where the 
cook can’t find it to put the whipped cream on, 
I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and Johnnie’s 
marbles. 



STORY XXI 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND JOHNNIE^S MARBLES 

It was a nice* warm spring day, when the 
ground in the woods where the animal boys and 
girls lived was soft, for all the frost had melted 
out of it; and, though it was a little too early to 
go barefoot, it was not too early to play marbles. 

Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels; 
Sammie Lit detail, the rabbit, and Jimmie Wib- 
blewobble, the duck, were having a game under 
the trees, not far from the hollow stump bun¬ 
galow which was the house of Uncle Wiggily 
Longears, the bunny gentleman. 

“First shot agates!” cried Johnnie. 

“No, I’m going to shoot first!” chattered his 
brother Billie. 

“Huh! I hollered it before either of you,” 
quacked Jimmie, the duck boy, and he tossed 
some red, white and blue striped marbles on the 
ground in the ring. The marbles were just the 
color of Uncle Wiggily’s rheumatism crutch. 

135 


186 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


The animal boys began playing, but they 
made so much noise, crying “Fen!” and “Ebbs!” 
and “Knuckle down!” that Nurse Jane Fuzzy 
Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, went to 
the bungalow door and called: 

“Boys! Boys! Will you please be a little 
quiet? Uncle Wiggily is lying down taking a 
nap, and I don’t want you to wake him up with 
your marbles.” 

“Oh, I don’t mind!” cried the bunny uncle, un¬ 
folding his ears from his vest pockets, where he 
always tucked them when he went to sleep, so 
the flies would not tickle him. “It’s about time 
I got up,” he said. 

“So the boys are playing marbles, eh? Well, 
I’ll go out and watch them. It will make me 
think of the days when I was a spry young 
bunny chap, hopping about, spinning my kites 
and flying my tops.” 

“I guess you are a little bit twisted; are you 
not?” asked Nurse Jane, politely. 

“Oh, so I am,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I mean 
flying my kite and spinning my top.” 

Then he pinkled his twink nose—Ah! you see 
that’s the time I was twisted—I mean he 
twinkled his pink nose, Uncle Wiggily did, and 
out he went to watch the animal boys play 
marbles. 



Uncle Wiggily and Johnnie’s Marbles 137 


Billie, Johnnie and Jimmie, as well as Sam- 
mie, wanted the bunny uncle to play also, but 
he said his rheumatism hurt too much to bend 
over. So he just watched the marble game, 
until it was time for the boys to go home. And 
then Johnnie cried: 

“Oh, I forgot! I have to go to the store for 
a loaf of bread for supper. Come on, fellows, 
with me, will you?” 

But neither Jimmie, nor Sammie nor Billie 
wanted to go with Johnnie, so he started off 
through the woods to the store alone, when 
Uncle Wiggily cried: 

“Wait a minute, Johnnie, and I’ll go with 
you. I haven’t had my walk this day, and I have 
had no adventure at all. I’ll go along and see 
what happens.” 

“Oh, that will be nice!” chattered Johnnie, 
who did not like to go to the store alone. So, 
putting his marbles in the bag in which he car¬ 
ried them, he ran along beside Uncle Wiggily. 

They had not gone far when, all of a sudden, 
there came a strong puff of wind, and, before 
Uncle Wiggily could hold his hat down over 
his ears, it was blown off his head. I mean his 
hat was—not his ears. 

Away through the trees the tall silk hat was 
blown. 



138 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“Oh, dear!” cried the bunny uncle. “I guess 
I am not going to have a nice adventure today.” 

“I’ll get your hat for you, Uncle Wiggily!” 
said Johnnie kindly. “You hold my bag of 
marbles so I can run faster, and I’ll get the hat 
for you.” 

Tossing the rabbit gentleman the marbles, 
away scampered Johnnie after the hat. But 
the wind kept on blowing it, and the squirrel 
boy had to run a long way. 

“Well, I hope he gets it and brings it back 
to me,” thought Uncle Wiggily, as he sat down 
on a green, moss-covered stone to wait for the 
squirrel boy. And, while he was waiting the 
bunny uncle opened the bag and looked at 
Johnnie’s marbles. There were green ones, and 
blue and red and pink—very pretty, all of them. 

“I wonder if I have forgotten how to play 
the games I used to enjoy when I was a boy 
rabbit?” thought the bunny gentleman. “Just 
now, when no one is here in the woods to laugh 
at me, X think I’ll try and see how well I can 
shoot marbles.” 

So he marked out a ring on the ground, and 
putting some marbles in the center began shoot¬ 
ing at them with another marble, just the way 
you boys do. 

“Ha! A good shot!” cried the bunny uncle, 
as he knocked two marbles out of the ring at 



Uncle Wiggily and Johnnie’s Marbles 139 


once. “I am not so old as I thought I was, 
even if I have the rheumatism.” 

He was just going to shoot again when a 
growling voice over behind a bush said: 

“Well, you will not have it much longer.” 

“Have what much longer?” asked Uncle 
Wiggily, and glancing up, there he saw a big 
bear, not at all polite looking. 

“You won’t have the rheumatism much 
longer,” the bear said. 

“Why not?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know. 

“Because,” answered the bear, “I am going 
to eat you up and the rheumatism, too. Here 
I come!” and he made a jump for the bunny 
uncle. But did he catch him? 

That bear did not, for he stepped on one of 
the round marbles, which rolled under his paw 
and he fell down ker-punko! on his nose-o! 

Uncle Wiggily started to run away, but he 
did not like to go and leave Johnnie’s marbles 
on the ground, so he stayed to pick them up, 
and by then the bear stood up on his hind legs 
again, and grabbed the bunny uncle in his 
sharp claws. 

“Ah ha! Now I have you!” said the bear, 
grillery and growlery like. 

“Yes, I see you have,” sadly spoke Uncle 
Wiggily. “But before you take me off to your 



140 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


den, which I suppose you will do, will you grant 
me one favor ?” 

“JYes, and only one,” growled the bear. “Be 
quick about it! What is it?” 

“Will you let me have one more shot?” asked 
the bunny uncle. “I want to see if I can knock 
the other marbles out of the ring.” 

“Well, I see no harm in that,” slowly grum¬ 
bled the bear. “Go ahead. Shoot!” 

Uncle Wiggily picked out the biggest shooter 
in Johnnie’s bag. Then he took careful aim, 
but, instead of aiming at the marbles in the 
ring he aimed at the soft and tender nose of 
the bear. 

“Bing!” went the marble which Uncle Wig¬ 
gily shot, right on the bear’s nose. “Bing!” 
And the bear was so surprised and ker- 
slostrated that he cried: 

“Wow! Ouch! Oh, lollypops! Oh, sweet 
spirits of nitre!” And away he ran through 
the woods to hold his nose in a soft bank of 
mud, for he thought a bee had stung him. And 
so he didn’t bite Uncle Wiggily after all. 

“Well, I guess I can play marbles nearly as 
well as I used to,” laughed the bunny uncle 
when Johnnie came back with the tall silk hat. 

And when Mr. Longears told the boy squir¬ 
rel about shooting the bear on the nose, Johnnie 



Uncle Wiggily and Johnnie’s Marbles 141 


laughed and said he could have done no better 
himself. 

So everything came out all right, you see, 
and if the butterfly doesn’t try to stand on its 
head and tickle the June bug under the chin, 
I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and 
Billie’s top. 



STORY XXII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND BILLIE^S TOP 

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit 
gentleman, was sitting on the front porch of 
his hollow stump bungalow one day, when along 
came Billie Bushytail, the little squirrel boy. 

“Hello, Billie!” called the bunny gentleman, 
cheerful-like and happy, for his rheumatism did 
not hurt him much that day. “Hello, Billie.” 

“Hello, Uncle Wiggily,” answered the chat- 
tery squirrel chap. Then he came up and sat 
down on the porch, but he seemed so quiet and 
thoughtful that Uncle Wiggily asked: 

“Is anything the matter, Billie?” 

“No—well—that is, nothing much,” said the 
squirrel boy slowly, “but I’d like to ask you 
what you’d buy if you had five cents, Uncle 
Wiggily.” 

“What would I buy if I had five cents,Billie? 
Well now, let me see. I think I’d buy two 
postage stamps and a funny postcard and write 
142 


Uncle Wiggily and Billie’s Top 143 


some letters to my friends. What would you 
buy, Billie?” 

“I’d buy a spinning top, Uncle Wiggily,” 
said the little squirrel boy, very quickly. “Only, 
you see, I haven’t any five cents. You have, 
though, haven’t you Uncle Wiggily? Eh?” 

“Why, yes, Billie, I think so,” and the old 
gentleman rabbit put his paw in his pocket to 
make sure. 

“This is a funny world,” said Billie with a 
long, sorrowful sigh. “Here you are with five 
cents and you don’t want a top, and here I am 
without five cents and I do want a spinning top. 
Oh, dear!” 

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed Uncle Wiggily in 
his most jolly fashion. “I see what you mean, 
Billie. Now you just come along with me,” 
and Uncle Wiggily picked up off the porch his 
red, white and blue striped barber-pole rheuma¬ 
tism crutch that Nurse Jane had gnawed for 
him out of a cornstalk. 

“Where are we going?” asked Billie, sort of 
hopeful-like and expectant. 

“I’m going to the top store to buy a spin¬ 
ning top,” answered bunny uncle. “If you 
think I ought to have one, why I’ll get it.” 

“Oh, all right,” said Billie, sort of funny¬ 
like. “Do you know how to spin a top, Uncle 
Wiggily?” 



144 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“Well, I used to when I was a young rabbit, 
and I guess I can remember a little about it. 
Come along and help me pick out a nice one/’ 

So the bunny uncle and the squirrel boy went 
on and on through the woods to the top store 
kept by Mrs. Spin Spider, who had a little toy 
shop in which she worked when she was not 
spinning silk for the animal ladies’ dresses. 

- “One of your best tops for myself, if you 
please,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he and Billie 
went into the toy store. Mrs. Spin Spider put 
a number of tops on the counter. 

“That’s the kind you want!” cried Billie, as 
he saw a big red one, and pointed his paw at it. 

“Try it and see how it spins,” said the bunny 
man. 

Billie wound the string on the top, and then, 
giving it a throw% while he kept hold of one 
end of the cord, he made the top spin as fast 
as anything on the floor of the store. Around 
and around whizzed the red top, like the elec¬ 
tric fan on Uncle Wiggily’s airship. 

“Is that a good top for me, Billie?” asked 
Mr. Longears. 

“A very good top,” said the squirrel boy. 
“Fine!” 

“Then I’ll take it,” said Uncle Wiggily, and 
he paid for it and walked out, Billie following. 

If the little chattery squirrel chap was dis- 



Uncle Wiggily and Billie’s Top 145 


appointed at not getting a top for himself, he 
said nothing about it, which was very brave and 
good, I think. He just walked along until 
they came to a nice, smooth-dirt place in the 
woods, and then Uncle Wiggily said: 

“Let me see you spin my top, Billie. I want 
to watch you and see how it’s done—how you 
wind the string on, how you throw it down to 
the ground and- all that. You just give me 
some lessons in top-spinning, please.” 

“I will,” said Billie. So he wound the string 
on the top again and soon it was spinning as 
fast as anything on the hard ground in the 
woods. 

“Do you want me to show you how to pick 
up a top, and let it spin on your paw?” asked 
Billie, of Uncle Wiggily. 

“Yes, show me all the tricks there are,” said 
the bunny gentleman. 

So, while the top was spinning very fast, 
Billie picked it up, and, holding it on his paw, 
quickly put it over on Uncle Wiggily’s paw. 

“Ouch! It tickles!” cried the bunny uncle, 
sort of giggling like. 

“Yes, a little,” laughed Billie, “but I don’t 
mind that. Now I’ll show you how to pick it 
up.” 

Once more he spun the top, and he was just 



146 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


going to pick it up when, all of a sudden, a 
growling voice cried: 

“Ah, ha! Again I am in luck! A rabbit and 
a squirrel! Let me see; which shall I take 
first?” And out from behind a stump popped 
a big bear. It was the same one that Uncle 
Wiggily had hit on the nose with Johnnie’s 
marble, about a week before. 

“Oh, my!” said the bunny man. 

“Oh, dear!” chattered Billie. 

“Surprised to see me, aren’t you?” asked the 
bear sticking out his tongue. 

“A little,” answered Uncle Wiggily, “but I 
guess we’d better be getting along Billie. Pick 
up my top and come along.” 

“Oh, oh! Not so fast!” growled the bear. “I 
shall w r ant you to stay with me. You’ll be go¬ 
ing off with me to my den, pretty soon. Don’t 
be in a hurry,” and, putting out his claws, he 
grabbed hold of Uncle Wiggily and Billie. 
They tried to get away, but could not, and the 
bear was just going to carry them off, when he 
saw r the spinning top whizzing on the ground. 

“What’s that red thing?” he asked. 

“A top Billie just picked out for me,” said 
Uncle Wiggily. 

“Would you like to have it spin on your 
paw?” asked Billie, blinking his eyes at Uncle 
Wiggily, funny-like. 



Uncle Wiggily and Billie’s Top 147 


“Oh, I might as well, before I carry you off 
to my den,” said the bear, sort of careless-like 
and indifferent. “Spin the top on my paw.” 

So Billie picked up the spinning top and put 
it on the bear’s broad, flat paw. And, no 
sooner was it there, whizzing around, than the 
bear cried: 

“Ouch! Oh, dear! How it tickles. Ha! Ha! 
Ha! Ho! Ho! Ho! It makes me laugh. It 
makes me laugh. It makes me giggle! Ouch! 
Oh, dear!” 

And then he laughed so hard that he dropped 
the top and turned a somersault, and away he 
ran through the woods, leaving Billie and Uncle 
Wiggily safe there alone. 

“We came out of that very well,” said the 
bunny uncle as the bear ran far away. 

“Yes, indeed, and here is your top,” spoke 
Billie, picking it up off the ground where the 
bear had dropped it. 

“My top? No that’s yours,” said the bunny 
gentleman. “I meant it for you all the while.” 

“Oh, did you? Thank you so much!” cried 
happy Billie, and then he ran off to spin his 
red top, while Mr. Longears went back to his 
bungalow. 

And if the sofa pillow doesn’t leak its 
feathers all over, and make the room look like 



148 Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


a bird’s nest at a moving picture picnic, I’ll 
tell you in the next story about Uncle Wiggily 
and the sunbeam. 



STORY XXIII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SUNBEAM 

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit 
gentleman, was walking along in the woods 
one day, sort of hopping and leaning on his 
red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, 
and he was wondering whether or not he would 
have an adventure, when, all at once, he heard 
a little voice crying: 

“Oh, dear! I never can get up! I never can 
get up! Oh, dear!” 

“Ha! that sounds like some one who can’t 
get out of bed,” exclaimed the bunny uncle. “I 
wonder who it can be? Perhaps I can help 
them.” 

So he looked carefully around, but he saw no 
one, and he was just about to hop along, think¬ 
ing perhaps he had made a mistake, and had 
not heard anything after all, when, suddenly, 
the voice sounded again, and called out: 

“Oh, I can’t get up! I can’t get up! Can’t 
you shine on me this way?” 

149 


150 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“No, I am sorry to say I cannot,” answered 
another voice. “But try to push your way 
through, and then I can shine on you, and make 
you grow.” 

There was silence for a minute, and then the 
first voice said again: 

“Oh, it's no use! I can’t push the stone from 
over my head. Oh, such trouble as I have!” 

“Trouble, eh?” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Here 
is where I come in. Who are you, and what is 
the trouble?” he asked, looking all around, and 
seeing nothing but the shining sun. 

“Here I am, down in the ground near your 
left hind leg,” was the answer. “I am a wood¬ 
land flower and I have just started to grow. 
But when I tried to put my head up out of the 
ground, to get air, and drink the rain water, I 
find I cannot do it. A big stone is in the way, 
right over my head, and I cannot push it aside 
to get up. Oh, dear!” sighed the Woodland 
flower. 

“Oh, don’t worry about that!” cried Uncle 
Wiggily, in his jolly voice. “I’ll lift the stone 
off your head for you,” and he did, just as he 
once had helped a Jack-in-the-pulpit flower to 
grow up, as I have told you in another story. 
Under the stone were two little pale green leaves 



Uncle Wiggily and the Sunbeam 151 


on a stem that was just cracking its way up 
through the brown earth. 

“There you are!” cried the bunny uncle. 
“But you don’t look much like a flower.” 

“Oh! I have only just begun to grow,” was 
the answer. “And I never would have been a 
flower if you had not taken the stone from me. 
Aon see, when I was a baby flower, or seed, I 
was covered up in my warm bed of earth. Then 
came the cold winter, and I went to sleep. 
When spring came I awakened and began to 
grow, but in the meanwhile this stone was put 
over me. I don’t know by whom. But it held 
me down. 

“But now I am free, and my pale green 
leaves will turn to dark green, and soon I will 
blossom out into a flower.” 

“How will all that happen?” Uncle Wiggily 
asked. 

“When the sunbeam shines on me,” answered 
the blossom. “That is why I wanted to get 
above the stone—so the sunbeam could shine on 
me and warm me.” 

“And I will begin to do it right now!” ex¬ 
claimed the sunbeam, who had been playing 
about on the leaves of the trees, waiting for a 
chance to shine on the green plant and turn it 
into a beautiful flower. “Thank you, Uncle 
Wiggily, for taking the stone off the leaves so 



152 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


I could shine on them,” went on the sunbeam, 
who had known Uncle Wiggily for some time. 
“Though I am strong I am not strong enough 
to lift stones, nor was the flower. But now I 
can do my work. I thank you, and I hope I 
may do you a favor some time.” 

“Thank you,” Uncle Wiggily said, with a 
low bow, raising his tall silk hat. “I suppose 
you sunbeams are kept very busy shining on, 
and warming, all the plants and trees in the 
woods?” 

“Yes, indeed!” answered the yellow sunbeam, 
who was a long, straight chap. “We have lots 
of work to do, but we are never too busy to 
shine for our friends.” 

Then the sunbeam played about the little 
green plant, turning the pale leaves a darker 
color and swelling out the tiny buds. Uncle 
Wiggily walked on through the woods, glad 
that he had had even this little adventure. 

It was a day or so after this that the bunny 
uncle went to the store for Nurse Jane Fuzzy 
Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, who kept his hollow 
stump bungalow so nice and tidy. 

“I want a loaf of bread, a yeast cake and 
three pounds of sugar,” said Nurse Jane. 

“It will give me great pleasure to get them 
for you,” answered the rabbit gentleman po¬ 
litely. On his way home from the store with 



Uncle Wiggily and the Sunbeam 158 


the sugar, bread and yeast cake, Uncle Wig¬ 
gily thought he would hop past the place where 
he had lifted the stone off the head of the plant, 
to see how it was growing. And, as he stood 
there, looking at the flower, which was much 
taller than when the bunny uncle had last seen 
it, all of a sudden there was a rustling in the 
bushes, and out jumped a bad old fox. 

“Ah, ha!” barked the fox, like a dog. “You 
are just the one I want to see!” 

“You want to see me?” exclaimed Uncle 
Wiggily. “I think you must be mistaken,” he 
went on politely. 

“Oh, no, not at all!” barked the fox. “You 
have there some sugar, some bread and a yeast 
cake; have you not?” 

“I have,” answered Uncle Wiggily. 

“Well, then, you may give me the bread and 
sugar and after I eat them I will start in on 
you. I will take you off to my den, to my dear 
little foxes, Eight, Nine and Ten. They have 
numbers instead of names, you see.” 

“But I don’t w^ant to give you Nurse Jane’s 
sugar and bread, and go with you to your den,” 
said the rabbit gentleman. “I don’t want to! 
I don’t like it!” 

“You can’t always do as you like,” barked 
the fox. “Quick now—the sugar and bread!” 

“What about the yeast cake?” asked Uncle 



154 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


Wiggily, as he held it out, all wrapped in shiny 
tinfoil, like a looking-glass. “What about the 
yeast cake?” 

“Oh, throw it away!” growled the fox. 

“No, don’t you do it!” whispered a voice in 
Uncle Wiggily’s ear, and there was the sun¬ 
beam he had met the other day. “Hold out the 
yeast cake and I will shine on it very brightly, 
and then I’ll slant, or bounce off from it, into 
the eyes of the fox,” said the sunbeam. “And 
when I shine in his eyes I’ll tickle him, and he’ll 
sneeze, and you can run away.” 

So Uncle Wiggily held out the bright yeast 
cake. Quick as a flash the sunbeam glittered 
on it, and then reflected itself into the eyes of 
the fox. 

“Ker-chool!” he sneezed. “Ker-chooaker- 
choo!” and tears came into the fox’s eyes, so 
he could not see Uncle Wiggily, who, after 
thanking the sunbeam, hurried safely back to 
his bungalow with the things for Nurse Jane. 

So the fox got nothing at all but a sneeze, 
you see, and when he had cleared the tears out 
of his eyes Uncle Wiggily was gone. So the 
sunbeam did the bunny gentleman a favor after 
all, and if the coal man doesn’t put oranges in 
our cellar, in mistake for apples when he brings 
a barrel of wood, I’ll tell you next about Uncle 
Wiggily and the puff ball. 



STORY XXIV 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PUFF BALL 

“Are you going for a walk to-day, as you 
nearly always do, Uncle Wiggily?” asked 
Nurse Jane Fuzzy, the muskrat lady house¬ 
keeper, of the rabbit gentleman, as he got up 
from the breakfast table in the hollow stump 
bungalow one morning. 

“Why, yes, Janie, I am going for a walk in 
the woods very soon/’ answered Uncle Wiggily. 
“Is there anything I can do for you?” 

“There is,” said the muskrat lady. “Some¬ 
thing for yourself, also.” 

“What is it?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to 
know, sort of making his pink nose turn orange 
color by looking up at the sun and sneezing. 
“What is it that I can do for myself as well as 
for you, Janie?” 

“Cream puffs,” answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. 

“Cream puffs?” cried the bunny uncle, hardly 
knowing whether his housekeeper was fooling or 
in earnest. 


155 


156 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“Yes, I want some cream puffs for supper, 
and if you stop at the baker’s and get them you 
will be doing yourself a favor as well as me, 
for we will both eat them.” 

“Right gladly will I do it,” Uncle Wiggily 
made answer. “Cream puffs I shall bring from 
the baker’s,” and then, whistling a funny little 
tune, away he hopped to the woods. 

It did not take him long to get to the place 
where the baker had his shop. And in a few 
minutes Uncle Wiggily was on his way back 
with some delicious cream puffs in a basket. 

“I’ll take them home to Nurse Jane for sup¬ 
per,” thought the bunny uncle, “and then I can 
keep on with my walk, looking for an 
adventure.” 

You know what cream puffs are, I dare say. 
They are little, round, puffy balls made of 
something like piecrust, and they are hollow. 
The inside is filled with something like corn¬ 
starch pudding, only nicer. 

Uncle Wiggily was going along with the 
cream puffs in his basket when, coming to a 
nice place in the woods, where the sun shone 
on a green, mossy log, the bunny mcle said: 

“I will sit down here a minute and rest.” 

So he did, but he rested longer than he 
meant to, for, before he knew it, he fell asleep. 
And while he slept, along came a bad old 



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Uncle Wiggily in the Puff Ball 157 


weasel, who is as sly as a fox. And the weasel, 
smelling the cream puffs in the basket, slyly 
lifted the cover and took every one out, eating 
them one after the other. 

“Now to play a trick on Uncle Wiggily,” 
said the weasel in a whisper, for the bunny 
uncle was still sleeping. So the bad creature 
found a lot of puff balls in the woods, and put 
them in the basket in place of the cream puffs. 

Puff balls grow on little plants. They are 
brown and round and hollow, and, so far, they 
are like cream puffs, except that inside they 
have a brown, fluffy powder that flies all over 
when you break the puff ball. And, if you are 
not careful, it gets in your eyes and nose and 
makes you sneeze. 

“I should like to see what Uncle Wiggily and 
Nurse Jane do when they open the basket, and 
find puff balls instead of cream puffs,” snick¬ 
ered the weasel as he went off, licking his chops, 
where the cornstarch pudding stuff was stuck on 
his whiskers. “It will be a great joke on them!” 

But let us see what happens. 

Uncle Wiggily awakened from his sleep in 
the woods, and started off toward his hollow 
stump bungalow. 

“I declare!” he cried. “That sleep made me 
hungry. I shall be glad to eat some of the 
cream puffs I have in my basket.” 



158 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“What’s that?” asked a sharp voice in the 
bushes. “What did you say you had in the 
basket?” 

“Cream puffs,” answered Uncle Wiggily, 
without thinking, and then, all of a sudden, out 
jumped the bad old skillery-scalery alligator 
with the humps on his tail. 

“Ha! Cream puffs!” cried the ’gator, as I 
call him for short, though he w^as rather long. 
“Cream puffs! If there is one thing I like more 
than another it is cream puffs! It is lucky you 
brought them with you, or I would have nothing 
for dessert when I have you for supper.” 

“Are you—are you going to have me for sup¬ 
per?” asked Uncle Wiggily, sort of anxious 
like. 

“I am!” cried the alligator, positively. “But 
I will eat the dessert first. Give me those 
cream puffs!” he cried and he made a grab for 
the bunny’s basket, and, reaching in, scooped 
out the puff balls, thinking they were cream 
puffs. The ’gator, without looking, took one 
bite and a chew and then- 

“Oh, my! Ker-sneezio! Ker-snitzio! Ker- 
ehoo!” he sneezed as the powder from the puff 
balls went up his nose and into his eyes. “Oh, 
what funny cream puffs! Wow!” And, not 
stopping to so much as nibble at Uncle Wig- 




Uncle Wiggily in the Puff Ball 159 


gily, away ran the alligator to get a drink of 
lemonade. 

So you see, after all, the weasel’s trick saved 
Uncle Wiggily, who soon went back to the store 
for more cream puffs—real ones this time, and 
he got safely home with them. 

And nothing else happened that day. But if 
the trolley car stops running down the street to 
play with the jitney bus, so the pussy cat can 
have a ride when it wants to go shopping in 
the three and four-cent store, I’ll tell you next 
about Uncle Wiggily and the May flowers. 



STORY XXY 

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MAY FLOWERS 

“Rat-a-tat!” came a knock on the door of 
the hollow stump bungalow, where Uncle Wig- 
gily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, lived in 
the woods with Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, his 
muskrat lady housekeeper. 

“My! Some one is calling early to-day!” said 
the bunny uncle. 

“Sit still and eat your breakfast,” spoke 
Nurse Jane. “I’ll see who it is.” 

When she opened the door there stood Jim¬ 
mie Wibblewobble, the boy duck. 

“Why where are you going so early this 
morning, Jimmie?” asked Uncle Wiggily. 

“I’m going to school,” answered the Wibble¬ 
wobble chap, who was named that because his 
tail did wibble and wobble from side to side 
when he walked. 

“Aren’t you a bit early?” asked Mr. Long- 
ears. 


160 


Uncle Wiggily and the May Flowers 161 


“I came early to get you,” said Jimmie. 
“Will you come for a walk with me, Uncle 
Wiggily? We can walk toward the hollow 
stump school, where the lady mouse teaches us 
our lessons.” 

“Why, it’s so very early,” Uncle Wiggily 
went on. “I have hardly had my breakfast. 
“Why so early, Jimmie?” 

The duck boy whispered in Uncle Wiggily’s 
ear: 

“I want to go early so I can gather some 
May flowers for the teacher. This is the first 
day of May, you know, and the flowers that 
have been wet by the April showers ought to 
be blossoming now.” 

“So they had!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll 
hurry with my breakfast, Jimmie, and we’ll go 
gathering May flowers in the woods.” 

Soon the bunny uncle and the boy duck were 
walking along where the green trees grew up 
out of the carpet of soft green moss. 

“Oh, here are some yellow violets!” cried 
Jimmie, as he saw some near an old stump. 

“Yes, and I see some white ones!” cried the 
bunny uncle, as he picked them, while Jimmie 
plucked the yellow violets with his strong bill, 
which was also yellow in color. 

Then they went on a little farther and saw 



162 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


some bluebells growing, and the bluebell flowers 
were tinkling a pretty little tinkle tune. 

The bluebells even kept on tinkling after 
Jimmie had picked them for his bouquet. The 
boy duck waddled on a little farther and all of 
a sudden, he cried: 

“Oh, what a funny flower this is, Uncle Wig¬ 
gily. It’s just like the little ice cream cones 
that come on Christmas trees, only it’s covered 
with a flap, like a leaf, and under the flap is a 
little green thing, standing up. What is it?” 

“That is a Jack-in-the-pulpit,” answered the 
bunny uncle, “and the Jack is the funny green 
thing. Jack preaches sermons to the other 
flowers, telling them how to be beautiful and 
make sweet perfume.” 

“I’m going to put a Jack in the bouquet for 
the lady mouse teacher,” said Jimmie, and he 
did. 

Then he and Uncle Wiggily went farther and 
farther on in the woods, picking May flowers, 
and they were almost at the hollow stump 
school when, all at once, from behind a big 
stone popped the bad ear-scratching cat. 

“Ah, ha!” howled the cat. “I am just in time' 
I see. I haven’t scratched any ears in ever and 
ever so long. And you have such nice, big ears, 
Uncle Wiggily, that it is a real pleasure to 
scratch them!” 



Uncle Wiggily and the May Flowers 163 


“Do you mean it is a pleasure for me, or for 
you?” asked the bunny uncle, softly like. 

“For me, of course!” meaouwed the cat. “Get 
ready now for the ear-scratching! Here I 
come!” 

“Oh, please don’t scratch my ears!” begged 
Uncle Wiggily. “Please don’t!” 

“Yes, I shall!” said the bad cat, stretching 
out his claws. 

“Would you mind scratching my ears, in¬ 
stead of Uncle Wiggily’s?” asked Jimmie. “I’ll 
let you scratch mine all you want to.” 

“I don’t want to,” spoke the cat. “Your 
ears are so small that it is no pleasure for me 
to scratch them—none at all.” 

“It was very kind of you to offer your ears 
in place of mine,” said Uncle Wiggily to the 
duck boy. “But I can’t let you do that. Go 
on, bad cat, if you are going to scratch my ears, 
please do it and have it over with.” 

“All right!” snarled the cat. “I’ll scratch 
your ears!” She was just going to do it, when 
Jimmie suddenly picked up a new flower, and 
holding it toward the cat cried: 

“No, you can’t scratch Uncle Wiggily’s ears! 
This is a dog-tooth violet I have just picked, 
and if you harm Uncle Wiggily I’ll make the 
dog-tooth violet bite you!” 



164 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


And then the big violet went: “Bow! Wow! 
Wow!” just like a dog, and the cat thinking a 
dog was after him, meaouwed: 

“Oh, my! Oh, dear! This is no place for 
me!” and away he ran, not scratching Uncle 
Wiggily at all. 

Then Jimmie put the dog-tooth violet (which 
did not bark any more) in his bouquet and the 
lady mouse teacher liked the May flowers very 
much. Uncle Wiggily took his flowers to Nurse 
Jane. 

And if the umbrella doesn’t turn inside out, so 
its ribs get all wet and sneeze the handle off, I’ll 
tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the 
beach tree. 



STORY XXVI 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BEECH TREE 

“Will you go to the store for me, Uncle 
Wiggily?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, 
the muskrat lady housekeeper, of the rabbit 
gentleman one day, as he sat out on the porch 
of his hollow stump bungalow in the woods. 

“Indeed I will, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, said 
Mr. Longears, most politely. “What is it you 
want?” 

“A loaf of bread and a pound of sugar,” she 
answered, and Uncle Wiggily started off. 

“Better take your umbrella,” Nurse Jane 
called after him. “All the April showers are 
not yet over, even if it is May.” 

So the rabbit gentleman took his umbrella. 

On his way to the store through the woods, 
the bunny uncle came to a big beech tree, which 
had nice, shiny white bark on it, and, to his 
surprise the rabbit gentleman saw a big black 
bear, standing up on his hind legs and scratch¬ 
ing at the tree bark as hard as he could. 

165 


166 Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“Ha! That is not the right thing to do,” said 
Uncle Wiggily to himself. “If that bear 
scratches too much of the bark from the tree 
the tree will die, for the bark of a tree is just 
like my skin is to me. I must drive the bear 
away.” 

The bear, scratching the bark with his sharp 
claws, stood with his back to Uncle Wiggily, 
and the rabbit gentleman thought he could 
scare the big creature away. 

So Uncle Wiggily picked up a stone, and 
throwing it at the bear, hit him on the back, 
where the skin was so thick it hurt hardly at 
all. 

And as soon as he had thrown the stone Uncle 
Wiggily in his loudest voice shouted: 

“Bang! Bang! Bungity-bang-bung!” 

“Oh, my goodness!” cried the bear, not turn¬ 
ing around. “The hunter man with his gun 
must be after me. He has shot me once, but 
the bullet did not hurt. I had better run away 
before he shoots me again!” 

And the bear ran away, never once looking 
around, for he thought the stone Mr. Long- 
ears threw was a bullet from a gun, you see, 
and he thought when Uncle Wiggily said 
“Bang!” that it was a gun going off. So the 
bunny gentleman scared the bear away. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Beech Tree 167 


“Thank you, Uncle Wiggily,” said the beech 
tree. “You saved my life by not letting the 
bear scratch off all my bark.” 

“I am glad I did,” spoke the rabbit, making 
a polite bow with his tall silk hat, for Mr. Long- 
ears was polite, even to a tree. 

“The bear would not stop scratching my 
bark when I asked him to,” went on the beech 
tree, “so I am glad you came along, and scared 
him. You did me a great favor and I will do 
you one if I ever can.” 

“Thank you,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, and 
then he hopped on to the store to get the loaf 
of bread and the pound of sugar for Nurse Jane. 

It was on the way back from the store that 
an adventure happened to Uncle Wiggily. He 
came to the place where his friend the beech 
tree was standing up in the woods, and a bal¬ 
sam tree, next door to it, was putting some 
salve, or balsam, on the places where the bear 
had scratched off the bark, to make the cuts 
heal. 

Then, all of a sudden, out from behind a bush 
jumped the same bad bear that had done the 
scratching. 

“Ah, ha!” growled the bear, as soon as he 
saw Uncle Wiggily, “you can’t fool me again, 
making believe a stone is a bullet, and that your 
‘Bang!’ is a gun! You can’t fool me! I know 



168 Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


all about the trick you played on me, A little 
bird, sitting up in a tree, saw it and told me!” 

“Well,” said Uncle Wiggily slowly, “I’m 
sorry I had to fool you, but it was all for the 
best. I wanted to save the beech tree.” 

“Oh, I don’t care!” cried the bear, saucy like 
and impolitely. “I’m going to scratch as much 
as I like!” 

“My goodness! You’re almost as bad as the 
ear-scratching cat!” said Uncle Wiggily. “I 
guess I’d better run home to my hollow stump 
bungalow.” 

“No, you don’t!” cried the bear, and, reach¬ 
ing out his claws, he caught hold of Uncle 
Wiggily, who, with his umbrella, and the bread 
and sugar, was standing under the beech tree. 
“You can’t get away from me like that,” and 
the bear held tightly to the bunny uncle. 

“Oh, dear! What are you going to do to 
me?” asked the rabbit gentleman. 

“First, I’ll bite you,” said the bear. “No, 
I guess I’ll first scratch you. No, I won’t 
either. I’ll scrite you; that’s what I’ll do. I’ll 
scrite you!” 

“What’s scrite?” asked Uncle Wiggily, 
curious like. 

“It’s a scratch and a bite made into one,” 
said the bear, “and now I’m going to do it.” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Beech Tree 169 


“Oh, ho! No, you aren’t!” suddenly cried 
the beech tree, who had been thinking of a way 
to save Uncle Wiggily. “No, you don’t scrite 
my friend!” And with that the brave tree gave 
itself a shiver and shake, and shook down on 
the bear a lot of sharp, three-cornered beech 
nuts. They fell on the bear’s soft and tender 
nose and the sharp edges hurt him so that he 
cried: 

“Wow! Ouch! I guess I made a mistake! 
I must run away!” 

And away he ran from the shower of sharp 
beech nuts which didn’t hurt Uncle Wiggily at 
all because he raised his umbrella and kept them 
off. Then he thanked the tree for having saved 
him from the bear and went safely home. And 
if the cow bell doesn’t moo in its sleep, and 
wake up the milkman before it’s time to bring 
the molasses for breakfast, I’ll tell you next 
about Uncle Wiggily and the bitter medicine. 



STORY XXYII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BITTER MEDICINE 

“How is Jackie this morning, Mrs. Bow 
Wow?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the 
rabbit gentleman, one day, as he stopped at the 
kennel where the dog lady lived with her two 
little boys, Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the 
puppies. “How is Jackie?” 

“Jackie is not so well, I’m sorry to say,” 
answered Mrs. Bow Wow, as she looked care¬ 
fully along the back fence to see if there were 
any bad cats there who might meaouw, and try 
to scratch the puppies. 

“Not so well? I am sorry to hear that,” spoke 
the bunny uncle. “What’s seems to be the 
matter?” 

“Oh, you know Jackie and Peetie both had 
the measles,” went on Mrs. Bow Wow. “They 
seemed to get over them nicely, at least Peetie 
did, but then Jackie caught the epizootic, and 
he has to stay in bed a week longer, and take 
bitter medicine.” 


170 


Uncle Wiggily and the Bitter Medicine 171 


“Bitter medicine, eh?” exclaimed Uncle Wig¬ 
gily. “I am sorry to hear that, for I don’t like 
bitter medicine myself.” 

“Neither does Jackie,” continued Mrs. Bow 
Wow. “In fact, he really doesn’t know whether 
he likes this bitter medicine or not.” 

“Why, not?” asked the rabbit gentleman. 

“Because we can’t get him to take a drop,” 
said the puppy dog boy’s mother. “Not a drop 
will he take, though I have fixed it up for him 
with orange juice and sugar and even put it in a 
lollypop. But he won’t take it, and Dr. Possum 
says he won’t get well unless he takes the bitter 
medicine.” 

“Well, Dr. Possum ought to know,” said 
Uncle Wiggily. “But why don’t you ask him 
a good way to give the medicine to Jackie?” 

“That’s what I’m waiting out here for now,” 
said Mrs. Bow Wow. “I want to catch Dr. 
Possum when he comes past, and ask him to 
come in and give Jackie the medicine. The poor 
boy really needs it to make him well.” 

“Of course he does,” agreed Uncle Wiggily. 
“And while you are waiting for Dr. Possum I’ll 
see what I can do.” 

“What are you going to do?” asked Mrs. Bow 
Wow, as the bunny uncle started for the dog 
kennel. 



172 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“I’m going to try to make Jackie take his 
bitter medicine. You lust stay out here a little 
while.” 

“Well, I hope you do it, but I’m afraid you 
won’t,” spoke Mrs. Bow Wow with a sigh. “I’ve 
tried all the ways I know. I was just going, as 
you came along, to get a toy balloon, blow it up, 
and put the medicine inside. Then I was going 
to let Jackie burst it by sticking a pin in it. And 
I thought when the balloon exploded the medi¬ 
cine might be blown down his throat.” 

“Oh, well, I think I have a better way than 
that,” said Uncle Wiggily with a laugh. He 
went in where Jackie, who had the measles- 
epizootic, was in bed. “Good morning, Jackie,” 
said the bunny uncle. “How are you?” 

“Not very well,” answered Jackie, the puppy 
dog boy. “But I’m glad to see you. I’m not 
going to take the bitter medicine even for you, 
though. Uncle Wiggily.” 

“Ho! Ho! Ho! Just you wait until you’re 
asked!” cried Mr. Longears in his most jolly 
voice. “Now let me have a look at that bitter 
medicine which is making so much trouble. 
Where is it?” 

“In that cup on the chair,” and Jackie pointed 
to it near his bed. 

“I see,” said Uncle Wiggily, looking at it. 
“Now, Jackie, I’m a good friend of yours, and 








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mmmp 


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Sill 






























Uncle Wiggily and the Bitter Medicine 173 


you wouldn’t mind just holding this cup of bit¬ 
ter medicine in your paw, would you, to please 
me?” 

“Oh, I’ll do that for you, Uncle Wiggily, but 
I’ll not take it,” Jackie said. 

“Never mind about that,” laughed the bunny 
uncle. “Just hold the medicine in your paw, 
so,” and Jackie did as he was told. “Now, would 
you mind holding it up to your lips, as if you 
were going to make believe take it?” asked 
Uncle Wiggily. “Mind you, don’t you dare 
take a drop of it. Just hold the cup to your 
lips, but don’t swallow any.” 

“Why do you want me to do that?” asked 
Jackie, as he did what Uncle Wiggily asked. 

“Because I want to draw a picture of you 
making believe take bitter medicine,” said the 
bunny, as he took out pencil and paper. “I’ll 
show it to any other of my little animal friends, 
who may not like their medicine, and I’ll say to 
them: ‘See how brave Jackie is to take his bit¬ 
ter medicine.’ Of course, I won’t tell them you 
really were afraid to take it,” and without say¬ 
ing any more Uncle Wiggily began to draw the 
puppy dog boy’s picture on the paper. 

“Hold the cup a little nearer to your lips, and 
tip it up a bit, Jackie,” said the bunny man. 
“But, mind you, don’t swallow a drop. That’s 



174 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


it, higher up! Tip it more. I want the picture 
to look natural.” 

Jackie tipped the cup higher, holding it close 
to his mouth, and threw back his head, and then 
Uncle Wiggily suddenly cried: “Ouch!” And 
Jackie was so surprised that he opened his mouth 
and before he knew it he had swallowed the bitter 
medicine! 

“Oh, why I took it!” he cried. “It went down 
my throat! And it wasn’t so bad, after all.” 

“I thought it wouldn’t be,” spoke Uncle 
Wiggily, as he finished the picture of Jackie, 
and now he could really say it showed the dog¬ 
gie boy actually taking the medicine, for Jackie 
did take it. 

So Dr. Possum didn’t have to come in to see 
Jackie after all to make him swallow the bitter 
stuff, and the little chap was soon all well again. 
And if the clothesline doesn’t try to jump rope 
with the Jack in the Box, and upset the wash- 
tub, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and 
the pine cones. 



STORY XXVIII 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PINE CONES 

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit . 
gentleman, was out walking in the woods one 
day when he felt rather tired. He had been 
looking all around for an adventure, which was 
something he liked to have happen to him, but 
he had seen nothing like one so far. 

“And I don’t want to go back to my hollow 
stump bungalow without having had an adven¬ 
ture to tell Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy about,” 
said Mr. Longears. 

But, as I said, the rabbit gentleman was feel¬ 
ing rather tired, and, seeing a nice log covered 
with a cushion of green moss, he sat down on 
that to rest. 

“Perhaps an adventure will happen to me 
here,” thought the bunny uncle as he leaned back 
against a pine tree to rest. 

It was nice and warm in the woods, and, 
with the sun shining down upon him, Uncle 
Wiggily soon dozed off in a little sleep. But 
175 


176 Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


when he awakened still no adventure had hap¬ 
pened to him. 

“Well, I guess I must travel on,” he said, and 
he started to get up, but he could not. He could 
not move his back away from the pine tree 
against which he had leaned to rest. 

“Oh, dear! what has happened,” cried the 
bunny uncle. “I am stuck fast! I can’t get 
away! Oh, dear!” 

At first he thought perhaps the skillery-scal- 
ery alligator with the humps on his tail had come 
softly up behind him as he slept and had him in 
his claws. But, by sort of looking around back¬ 
ward, Mr. Longears could see no one—not even 
a fox. 

“But what is it holding me?” he cried, as he 
tried again and again to get loose, but could not. 

“I am sorry to say I am holding you!” spoke 
a voice up over Uncle Wiggily’s head. “I am 
holding you fast!” 

“Who are you, if you please?” asked the rab¬ 
bit gentleman. 

“1 am the pine tree against which you leaned 
your back. And on my bark was a lot of sticky 
pine gum. It is that which is holding you fast,” 
the tree answered. 

“Why—why, it’s just like sticky flypaper, 
isn’t it?” asked Uncle Wiggily, trying again to 



Uncle Wiggily and the Pine Cones 177 


get loose, but not doing so. “And it is just like 
the time you held the bear fast for me.” 

“Yes, it is; and flypaper is made from my 
sticky pine gum,” said the tree. “I am so sorry 
you are stuck, but I did not see you lean back 
against me until it was too late. And now I 
can’t get you loose, for my limbs are so high over 
your head that I can not reach them down to you. 
Try to get loose yourself.” 

“I will,” said Uncle Wiggily, and he did, but 
he could not get loose, though he almost pulled 
out all his fur. So he cried: 

“Help! Help! Help!” 

Then, all of a sudden, along through the 
woods came Neddie Stubtail, the little bear-boy, 
and Neddie had some butter, which he had just 
bought at the store for his mother. 

“Oh!” cried the pine tree. “If you will rub 
some butter on my sticky gum, it will loosen and 
melt it, so Uncle Wiggily will not be stuck any 
more.” 

Neddie did so, and soon the bunny uncle was 
free. 

“Oh, I can’t tell you how sorry I am,” said 
the pine tree. “I am a horrid creature, of no 
use in this world, Uncle Wiggily! Other trees 
have nice fruit or nuts or flowers on them, but 
all I have is sticky gum, or brown, rough ugly 



178 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


pine cones. Oh, dear! I am of no use in the 
world!” 

“Oh, yes you are!” said Uncle Wiggily, 
kindly. “As for having stuck me fast, that was 
my own fault. I should have looked before I 
leaned back. And, as for your pine cones, I 
dare say they are very useful.” 

“No, they are not!” said the tree sadly. “If 
they were only ice cream cones they might be 
some good. Oh, I wish I were a peach tree, or a 
rose bush!” 

“Never mind,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, “I like 
your pine cones, and I am going to take some 
home with me, and, when I next see you, I shall 
tell you how useful they were. Don’t feel so 
badly.” 

So Uncle Wiggily gathered a number of the 
pine cones, which are really the big, dried seeds 
of the pine tree, and the bunny uncle took them 
to his bungalow with him. 

A few days later he was in the woods again 
and stopped near the pine tree, which was sigh¬ 
ing and wishing it were an umbrella plant or a 
gold fish. 

“Hush!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “You must 
try to do the best you can for what you are! And 
I have come to tell you how useful your pine 
cones were.” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Pine Cones 179 


“Really?” asked the tree, in great surprise. 
“Really?” 

“Really and truly,” answered Uncle Wiggily. 
“With some of your cones Nurse Jane started 
her kitchen fire when all the wood was wet. With 
others I built a little play house, and amused 
Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck girl, when she had 
the toothache. And other cones I threw at a 
big bear that was chasing me. I hit him on the 
nose with them, and he was glad enough to run 
away. So you see how useful you are, pine 
tree!” 

“Oh, I am so glad,” said the tree. “I guess it 
is better to be just what you are, and do the best 
you can,” and Uncle Wiggily said it was. 

And, if the roof of our house doesn’t come 
down stairs to play with the kitchen floor and 
let the rain in on the gold fish, I’ll tell you next 
about Uncle Wiggily and his torn coat. 



story; xxix 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND HIS TORN COAT 

“Do you think I look all right?” asked Uncle 
Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, of 
Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, his muskrat lady 
housekeeper. He was standing in front of her*, 
turning slowly about, and he had on a new coat. 
For now that Summer was near the bunny uncle 
had laid aside his heavy fur coat and was wear¬ 
ing a lighter one. 

“Yes, you do look very nice,” Nurse Jane 
said, tying her tail in a knot so Uncle Wiggily 
would not step on it as he turned around. 

“Nice enough to go to Grandfather Goosey 
Gander's party?” asked the rabbit gentleman. 

“Oh, yes, indeed!” exclaimed Nurse Jane. “I 
didn’t know Grandpa Goosey was to give a 
party, but, if he is, you certainly look well 
enough to go with your new coat. Of course, it 
might be better if it had some lace insertion 
around the button holes, or a bit of ruching, with 
180 


Uncle Wiggily and his Tom Coat 181 


oyster shell trimming sewed down the back, 
but—” 

“Oh, no, indeed!” laughed the bunny uncle. 
“If it had those things on it would be a coat for 
a lady. I like mine plainer.” 

“Well, take care of yourself,” called Nurse 
Jane after him as he hopped off over the fields 
and through the woods to the house where 
Grandfather Goosey Gander lived. 

“Now, I must be very careful not to get my 
new coat dirty, or I won’t look nice at the party,” 
the old rabbit gentleman was saying to himself 
as he hopped along. “I must be very careful 
indeed.” 

He went along as carefully as he could, but, 
just as he was going down a little hill, under the 
trees, he came to a place which was so slippery 
that, before he knew it, all of a sudden Uncle 
Wiggily fell down and slid to the bottom of the 
hill. 

“My goodness!” he cried, as he stood up after 
his slide. “I did not know there was snow or ice 
on that hill.” 

And when he looked there was not, but it was 
covered with long, thin pine needles, which are 
almost as slippery as glass. It was on these that 
the rabbit gentleman had slipped down hill. 

“Well, there is no great harm done,” said 
Uncle Wiggily to himself, as he found no bones 



182 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


broken. “I had a little slide, that’s all. I must 
bring Sammie and Susie Littletail here some 
day, and let them slide on pine needle hill. 
Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the two squirrels, 
would also like it, and so would Nannie and 
Billie Wagtail, my two goat friends.” 

Uncle Wiggily was about to go on to the 
party when, as he looked at his new coat he saw 
that it was all torn. In sliding down the slip¬ 
pery pine needle hill the coat had caught on 
sticks and stones and it had many holes torn in 
it, and it was also ripped here and there. 

“Oh, dear me!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Oh, 
sorrow! Oh, unhappiness! Now I’ll have to go 
back to my hollow stump bungalow and put on 
my old coat that isn’t torn. For I never can 
wear my new one to the party. That would 
never do! But the trouble is, if I go back home 
I’ll be late! Oh, dear, what trouble I am in!” 

Now was the time for some of Uncle Wig- 
gily’s friends to help him in his trouble, as he 
had often helped them. But, as he looked 
through the woods, he could not see even a little 
mouse, or so much as a grasshopper. 

“The tailor bird would be just the one I’d like 
to see now,” said the rabbit uncle. “She could 
mend my torh coat nicely.” For tailor birds, 
yon know, can take a piece of grass, with their 
bill for a needle, and sew leaves together to make 



Uncle Wiggily and his Tom Coat 183 


a nest, almost as well as your mother can mend 
a hole in your stocking. 

But there was no tailor bird in the woods, and 
Uncle Wiggily did not know what to do. 

“I certainly do not want to be late to Grand¬ 
pa Goosey’s party,” said the bunny uncle, “nor 
do I want to go to it in a torn coat. Oh, dear!” 

Just then he heard down on the ground near 
him, a little voice saying: 

“Perhaps we could mend your coat for you, 
Uncle Wiggily.” 

“You. Who are you, and how can you mend 
my torn coat?” the bunny gentleman wanted to 
know. 

“We are some little black ants,” was the an¬ 
swer, “and with the pine needles lying on the 
ground—some of the same needles on which you 
slipped—we can sew up your coat, with long 
grass for thread.” 

“Oh, that will be fine, if you can do it,” spoke 
the bunny uncle. “Can you?” 

“We’ll try,” the ants said. Then, about four¬ 
teen thousand six hundred and twenty-two black 
ants took each a long, sharp pine needle, and 
threading it with grass, they began to sew up the 
rips and tears in Uncle Wiggily’s coat. And in 
places where they could not easily sew they 
stuck the cloth together with sticky gum from 
the pine tree. So, though the pine tree was to 



184 


Unde Wiggily in the Woods 


blame, in a way, for Uncle Wiggily’s fall, it also 
helped in the mending of his coat. 

Soon the coat was almost as good as new, and 
you could hardly tell where it was torn. And 
Uncle Wiggily, kindly thanking the ants, went 
on to Grandpa Goosey’s party and had a fine 
time and also some ice cream. 

And if the egg beater doesn’t take all the 
raisins out of the rice pudding, so it looks like a 
cup of custard going to the moving pictures, the 
next story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the 
sycamore tree. 



STORY XXX 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SYCAMORE TREE 

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily, I’m going to a party! 
I’m going to a party!” cried Nannie Wagtail, 
the little goat girl, as she pranced up in front of 
the hollow stump bungalow where Mr. Long- 
ears, the rabbit gentleman, lived with Nurse 
Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady house¬ 
keeper. 

“Going to a party? Say, that’s just fine!” 
said the bunny gentleman. “I wish I were 
going to one.” 

“Why, you can come, too!” cried Nannie. 
“Jillie Longtail, the little mouse girl, is giving 
the party, and I know she will be glad to have 
you.” 

“Well, perhaps, I may stop in for a little 
while,” said Mr. Longears, with a smile that 
made his pink nose twinkle like the frosting on 
a sponge cake. “But when is the party going to 
take place, Nannie?” 


185 


186 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“Right away—I’m going there now; but I 
just stopped at your bungalow to show you my 
new shoes that Uncle Butter, the circus poster 
goat, bought for me. Aren’t they nice?” And 
she stuck out her feet. 

“Indeed, they are!” cried Uncle Wiggily, as 
he looked at the shiny black shoes which went on 
over Nannie’s hoofs. “So the party is to-day, is 
it?” 

“Right now,” said Nannie. “Come on, Uncle 
Wiggily. Walk along with me and go in! 
They’ll all be glad to see you!” 

“Oh, but my dear child!” cried the bunny gen¬ 
tleman. “I haven’t shaved my whiskers, my ears 
need brushing, and I would have to do lots of 
things to make myself look nice and ready for a 
party!” 

“Oh, dear!” bleated Nannie Wagtail. “I did 
so want you to come with me!” 

“Weil, I’ll walk as far as the Longtail mouse 
home,” said the bunny uncle, “but I won’t go 
in.” 

“Oh, maybe you will when you get there!” 
And Nannie laughed, for she knew Uncle Wig¬ 
gily always did whatever the animal children 
wanted him to do. 

So the bunny uncle and Nannie started off 
through the woods together, Nannie looking 
down at her new shoes every now and then. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Sycamore Tree 187 


“I’m going to dance at the party, Uncle Wig¬ 
gily!” she said. 

“I should think you would, Nannie, with 
those nice new shoes,” spoke Mr. Longears. 
“What dance are you going to do?” 

Oh, the four-step and the fish hornpipe, I 
guess,” answered Nannie, and then she sud¬ 
denly cried: 

“Oh, dear!” 

“What’s the matter now?” asked Uncle Wig¬ 
gily. “Did you lose one of your new shoes?” 

“No, but I splashed some mud on it,” the lit¬ 
tle goat girl said. “I stepped in a mud puddle.” 

“Never mind, I’ll wipe it off with a bit of soft 
green moss,” answered Uncle Wiggily; and he 
did. So Nannie’s shoes were all clean again. 

On and on went the rabbit gentleman and the 
little goat girl, and they talked of what games 
the animal children would play at the Longtail 
mouse party, and what good things they would 
eat, and all like that. 

All of a sudden, as Nannie was jumping over 
another little puddle of water, she cried out 
again: 

“Oh, dear!” 

“What’s the matter now?” asked Uncle Wig¬ 
gily. “Did some more mud splash on your new 
shoes, Nannie?” 



188 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“No, Uncle Wiggily, but a lot of the buttons 
came off. I guess they don’t fasten buttons on 
new shoes very tight.” 

“I guess they don’t,” Uncle Wiggily said. 
“But still you have enough buttons left to keep 
the shoes on your feet. I guess you will be all 
right.” 

So Nannie walked on a little farther, with 
Uncle Wiggily resting his rheumatism, now and 
then, on the red, white and blue striped barber 
pole crutch that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him 
out of a cornstalk. 

All of a sudden Nannie cried out again: 

“Oh, dear! Oh, this is too bad!” 

“What is?” asked Uncle Wiggily. 

“Now all the buttons have come off my shoes!” 
said the little goat girl, sadly. “I don’t see how 
I can go on to the party and dance, with no but* 
tons on my shoes. They’ll be slipping off all the 
while.” 

“So they will,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “Shoes 
without buttons are like * lollypops without 
sticks, you can’t do anything with them.” 

“But what am I going to do?” asked Nannie, 
while tears came into her eyes and splashed up 
on her horns. “I do want so much to go to that 
party.” 

“And I want you to,” said Uncle Wiggily. 
“Let me think a minute.” 



Uncle Wiggily and the Sycamore Tree 189 


So he thought and thought, and then he looked 
off through the woods and he saw a queer tree 
not far away. It w r as a sycamore tree, with 
broad white patches on the smooth bark, and 
hanging down from the branches were lots of 
round balls, just like shoe buttons, only they 
were a sort of brown instead of black.* The balls 
were the seeds of the tree. 

“Ha! The very thing!” cried the bunny uncle. 

“What is?” asked Nannie. 

“That sycamore, or button-ball tree,” an¬ 
swered the rabbit gentleman. “I can get you 
some new shoe buttons off that, Nannie, and sew 
them on your shoes.” 

“Oh, if you can, that will be just fine!” cried 
the little goat girl. “For when the buttons came 
off my new shoes they flew every which way—I 
mean the buttons did—and I couldn’t find a 
single one.” 

“Never mind,” Uncle Wiggily kindly said. 
“I’ll sew on some of the buttons from the syca¬ 
more tree, and everything will be all right.” 

With a thorn for a needle, and some long 
grasses for thread, Uncle Wiggily soon sewed 
the buttons from the sycamore, or button-ball, 
tree on Nannie’s new shoes, using the very small¬ 
est ones, of course. Then Nannie put on her 
shoes again, having rested her feet on a vel- 



190 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


vet carpet of moss, while Uncle Wiggily was 
sewing, and together they went on to the Long- 
tail mouse party. 

“Oh, what nice shoes you have, Nannie!” cried 
Susie Littletail, the rabbit girl. 

“And what lovely stylish buttons!” exclaimed 
Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck. 

“Yes, Uncle Wiggily sewed them on for me,” 
said Nannie. 

“Oh, is Uncle Wiggily outside!” cried the lit¬ 
tle mousie girl. “He must come in to our 
party!” 

“Of course!” cried all the other animal chil¬ 
dren. And so Uncle Wiggily, who had walked 
on past the house after leaving Nannie, had to 
come in anyhow, without his whiskers being 
trimmed, or his ears curled. And he was so jolly 
that every one had a good time and lots of ice 
cream cheese to eat, and they all thought Nan¬ 
nie’s shoes, and the button-ball buttons, were 
just fine. 

And if the ham sandwich doesn’t tickle the 
cream puff under the chin and make it laugh so 
all the chocolate drops off the cocoanut pudding. 
I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the 
red spots. 



STORY XXXI 


UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE RED SPOTS 

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gen¬ 
tleman, was bopping along through the woods 
one fine day when he heard a little voice calling 
to him: 

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Will you have a game 
of tag with me?” 

At first the bunny uncle thought the voice 
might belong to a bad fox or a harum-scarum 
bear, but when he had peeked through the 
bushes he saw that it was Lulu Wibblewobble, 
the duck girl, who had called to him. 

“Have a game of tag with you? Why, of 
course, I will!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “That 
is, if you will kindly excuse my rheumatism, and 
the red, white and blue crutch which Nurse Jane 
Fuzzy Wuzzy, my muskrat lady housekeeper, 
gnawed for me out of a cornstalk.” 

“Of course, Ill excuse it, Uncle Wiggily,” 
said Lulu. “Only please don’t tag me with the 
end of your crutch, for it tickles me, and when 
191 


192 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


I’m tickled I have to laugh, and when I laugh I 
can’t play tag.” 

“I won’t tag you with my crutch,” spoke 
Uncle Wiggily with a laugh. “Now we’re 
ready to begin.” 

So the little duck girl and the rabbit gentle¬ 
man played tag there in the woods, jumping and 
springing about on the soft mossy green carpet 
under the trees. 

Sometimes Lulu was “it” and sometimes 
Uncle Wiggily would be tagged by the foot or 
wing of the duck girl, who was a sister to Alice 
and Jimmie Wibblewobble. 

“Now for a last tag!” cried Uncle Wiggily 
when it was getting dark in the woods. “I’ll tag 
you this time, Lulu, and then we must go 
home.” 

“All right,” agreed Lulu, and she ran and 
flew so fast that Uncle Wiggily could hardly 
catch her to make her “it.” And finally when 
Uncle Wiggily almost had his paw on the duck 
girl she flew right over a bush, and, before 
Uncle Wiggily could stop himself he had run 
into the bush until he was half way through it. 

But, very luckily, it was not a scratchy briar 
bush, so no great harm was done, except that 
Uncle Wiggily’s fur was a bit ruffled up, and he 
was tickled. 




/ 











































































Uncle Wiggily and the Red Spots 193 


“I guess I can’t tag you this time, Lulu!” 
laughed the bunny uncle. “We’ll give up the 
game now, and I’ll be ‘it’ next time when we 
play." 

“All right, Uncle Wiggily,” said Lulu. “I’ll 
meet you here in the woods at this time tomorrow 
night, and I’ll bring Alice and Jimmie with me, 
and we’ll have lots of fun. We’ll have a grand 
game of tag!” 

“Fine!” cried the bunny uncle, as he 
squirmed his way out of the bush. 

Then he went on to his hollow stump bunga¬ 
low, and Lulu went on to her duck pen house to 
have her supper of corn meal sauce with water¬ 
cress salad sprinkled over the sides. 

As Uncle Wiggily was sitting down to his 
supper of carrot ice cream with lettuce sand¬ 
wiches all puckered around the edges, Nurse 
Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy looked at him across the 
table, and exclaimed: 

“Why, Wiggy! What’s the matter with 
you?” 

“Matter with me? Nothing, Janie! I feel 
just fine!” he said. “I’m hungry, that’s all!” 

“Why, you’re all covered with red spots!” 
went on the muskrat lady. “You are breaking 
out with the measles. I must send for Dr. Pos¬ 
sum at once.” 



194 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


“Measles? Nonsense!” exclaimed Uncle 
Wiggily. “I can’t have ’em again. I’ve had 
’em once.” 

“Well, maybe these are the French or Ger¬ 
man mustard measles,” said the muskrat lady. 
“You are certainly all covered with red spots, 
and red spots are always measles.” 

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” 
asked Uncle Wiggily. 

“You must go to bed at once,” said Nurse 
Jane, “and when Dr. Possum comes he’ll tell 
you what else to do. Oh, my! Look at the red 
spots!” 

Uncle Wiggily was certainly as red-spotted 
as a polka-dot shirt waist. He looked at him¬ 
self in a glass to make sure. 

“Well, I guess I have the measles all right,” 
he said. “But I don’t see how I can have them 
twice. This must be a different style, like the 
new dances.” 

It was dark when Dr. Possum came, and 
when he saw the red spots on Uncle Wiggily, he 
said: 

“Yes, 1 guess they’re the measles all right. 
Lots of the animal children are down with 
them. But don’t worry. Keep nice and warm 
and quiet, and you’ll be all right in a few days.” 

So Uncle Wiggily went to bed, red spots and 
all, and Nurse Jane made him hot carrot and 



Uncle Wiggily and the Red Spots 195 


sassafras tea, with whipped cream and chocolate 
in it. The cream was not whipped because it 
was bad, you know, but only just in fun, to make 
it stand up straight. 

All the next day the bunny uncle stayed in 
bed with his red spots, though he wanted very 
much to go out in the woods looking for an ad¬ 
venture. And when evening came and Nurse 
Jane was sitting out on the front porch of the 
hollow stump bungalow, she suddenly heard a 
quacking sound, and along came Lulu, Alice and 
Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck children. 

“Where is Uncle Wiggily?” asked Lulu. 

“He is in bed,” answered Nurse Jane. 

“Why is he in bed?” asked Jimmie. “Was he 
bad?” 

“No, indeed,” laughed Nurse Jane. “But 
your Uncle Wiggily is in bed because he has the 
red-spotted measles. What did you want of 
him?” 

“He promised to meet us in the woods, where 
the green moss grows,” answered Lulu, “and 
play tag with us. We waited and waited, and 
played tag all by ourselves tonight, even jump¬ 
ing in the bush, as Uncle Wiggily accidentally 
did when he was chasing me, but he did not come 
along. So we came here to see what is the 
matter.” 



196 


Uncle Wiggily in the Woods 


The three duck children came up on the porch, 
where the bright light shone on them from inside 
the bungalow. 

“Oh, my goodness me sakes alive and some 
paregoric lollypops!” cried Nurse Jane, as she 
looked at the three. “You ducks are all covered 
with red spots, too! You all have the measles! 
Oh, my!” 

“Measles!” cried Jimmie, the boy duck. 
“Measles? These aren’t measles. Nurse Jane! 
These are sticky, red berries from the bushes we 
jumped in as Uncle Wiggily did. The red ber¬ 
ries are sticky, like burdock burrs, and they stuck 
to us.” 

“Oh, my goodness!” cried Nurse Jane. “Wait 
a minute, children!” Then she ran to where 
Uncle Wiggily was lying in bed. She leaned 
over and picked off some of the red spots from 
his fur. 

“Why!” cried the muskrat lady. “You 
haven’t the measles at all, Wiggy! It’s just 
sticky, red berries in your fur, just as they are 
in the ducks’ feathers. You’re all right! Get 
up and have a good time!” 

And Uncle Wiggily did, after Nurse Jane 
had combed the red, sticky burr-berries out of 
his fur. He didn’t have the measles at all, for 
which he was very glad, because he could now be 
up and play tag. 



Uncle Wiggily and the Red Spots 197 


“My goodness! That certainly was a funny 
mistake for all of us,” said Dr. Possum next 
day. “But the red spots surely did look like the 
measles.” Which shows us that things are not 
always what they seem. 

And if the—Oh, excuse me, if you please. 
There is not going to be a next story in this 
book. It is already as full as it can he, so the 
story after this will have to be put in the follow¬ 
ing book, which also means next. 

Let me see, now, Oh, I know. Next I’m 
going to tell you some stories about the old gen¬ 
tleman growing cabbages, lettuce and things 
like that out of the ground, and the book will be 
called “Uncle Wiggily on The Farm.” It will 
be ready for you by Christmas, I think, and I 
hope you will like it. 

And now I will say good-bye for a little while, 
and if the lollypop doesn’t take its sharp stick 
to make the baby carriage roll down the hill and 
into the trolley car, I’ll soon begin to make the 
new book. 


THE END. 









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